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Ok so I've been wondering, how is it that physicist's EXPERIMENTALLY determine the ground state configuration of electrons in a particular atom? In other words do they use emission spectra/thermodynamic calculations/etc?
Also, if ground state represents an atom's minimal energy state, which technically can only occur at zero kelvin as any increase in temperature above 0K results in vibrational energy being supplied to the atom from the environment and thus is NOT the minimal energy of the atom(may be close but there is certainly a difference), does this mean that these experiments involve cooling the atom in question to near 0K temperatures for analysis?
Also, if ground state represents an atom's minimal energy state, which technically can only occur at zero kelvin as any increase in temperature above 0K results in vibrational energy being supplied to the atom from the environment and thus is NOT the minimal energy of the atom(may be close but there is certainly a difference), does this mean that these experiments involve cooling the atom in question to near 0K temperatures for analysis?