Gas and photons

1. Aug 24, 2014

radaballer

If a gas is bombarded with light will the atoms absorb the light and emit photons of an equal energy level?

2. Aug 24, 2014

mathman

It is more complicated and depends on the constituents of the gas. Typically when a photon is absorbed an atom or molecule will go to a higher energy state. What happens next depends on the material and the photon wavelength.

3. Aug 24, 2014

ChrisVer

They don't have to emit photons of an equal energy level... I'm talking about photon absorption...
For a rough example, suppose you have three energy levels... $E_{3} > E_{2} >E_{1}$... if the absorbed photon has energy $E= |E_{3}- E_{1}|$, then you can have the production of 2 photons of energy $\epsilon_{a}=|E_{3}- E_{2}|$ and $\epsilon_{b}=|E_{2}-E_{1}|$...

4. Aug 24, 2014

radaballer

Is there any particular way to determine the constituency of gas as it relates to the release of photons

5. Aug 26, 2014

mathman

Yes. The spectrum of the emitted radiation. Each atomic species has its own spectrum. This is how we know what stars are made of, among other things.

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