Energy levels and hydrogen atom

[brianhurren]

if you take a hydrogen atom and strip off the electron so that you are left with a proton. does the proton have energy levels around it? can a solitary proton still be regarded as an atom (H+)

 

[DrClaude]

if you take a hydrogen atom and strip off the electron so that you are left with a proton. does the proton have energy levels around it?

No. It is the system proton+electron that posesses discrete quantized bound states.

can a solitary proton still be regarded as an atom (H+)

It depends in what regards. From the point of view of physics, the answer is most probably no. I don't think the people at CERN think they are colliding atoms when they are colliding protons. But for chemists, H⁺ has many of the same characteristics of other singly-ionized atoms, and is to be treated as a cation when considering chemical reaction.

 

[brianhurren]

so the energy levels emerge only when the electron and the proton interact. are the energy levels a result of the fact that the electron and proton charges are quantized?. Is that like when iron fillings and magnetic field interact and produce field lines?(analogy only, completely different phenomenon)

 

[dextercioby]

In the first approximation, the energy levels of the H-atom are due to the electrostatic interaction between a proton and an electron as electrically charged particles, with these 2 particles seen through the eyes of quantum mechanics, while the interaction between them is in terms of classical electromagnetism (electrostatics).