What Defines the Weak Field Regime in the Zeeman Effect?

[rabbit44]

Hi, quick question:

I have been told that the weak field regime is when the spin orbit interaction dominates over the Zeeman effect.

What exactly does this mean? Does it mean that the energy shift relative to the gross energy due to the S-O interaction is much greater than the energy shift relative to the gross energy due to the Zeeman effect? Or does it mean that the energy shift due to the Zeeman effect is small compared to the difference in energy between consecutive fine structure levels?

Thanks

 

[wdlang]

Hi, quick question:

I have been told that the weak field regime is when the spin orbit interaction dominates over the Zeeman effect.

What exactly does this mean? Does it mean that the energy shift relative to the gross energy due to the S-O interaction is much greater than the energy shift relative to the gross energy due to the Zeeman effect? Or does it mean that the energy shift due to the Zeeman effect is small compared to the difference in energy between consecutive fine structure levels?

Thanks

your understanding is exactly right

so that the zeeman term can be treated as a perturbation over other terms