I Free electron path without a nearby proton

Tareq Naushad
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Quantum properties of an free electron outside atom
In absence of a positive electric field created by proton what type of behavior an electron shows? I am talking about a free electron like from a electron gun in deep space . Pauli's exclusion, orbitals, energy level etc. which are normal in an atom for electron will be absent for an electron out from an atom. So what type of quantum behavior it shows then ?
 
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It still has quantized spin and charge.
 
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thanks. what about its allowable energy level, uncertainty of position, momentum etc. because now it is not governed by the field of +ve proton
 
Tareq Naushad said:
what about its allowable energy level, uncertainty of position, momentum etc. because now it is not governed by the field of +ve proton
We're still solving Schrodinger's equation to find the wave function. Schrodinger's equation includes a term for the potential, which will be the Coulomb potential for an electron near a proton (whether bound or not) and zero for an isolated (and therefore obviously unbound) electron in vacuum.

The bound states will have discrete eigenvalues. The unbound ones will have a continuous spectrum (although there are some mathematical complications here that we can ignore for now) quantum mechanics still works: position/momentum uncertainty still works, Schrodinger's equation governs the evolution of the wave function, we can even in principle do a double-slit experiment with a beam of free electrons and produce an interference pattern.
 
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Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!
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