All Questions
7
questions
8
votes
2
answers
824
views
How "wide" are absorption and emission lines?
There are various absorption lines that correspond to the difference in energy levels between electron orbits. E.g. the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman-alpha_line correpsonding to the difference ...
- 2,908
1
vote
1
answer
101
views
Trouble with Einstein coefficients - what is the meaning of the transition probability?
Perhaps it seems to be a not very intelligent question, but I am unfortunately not able to understand what the probability per second that a molecule will absorb a photon is, as part of the theory of ...
- 103
2
votes
2
answers
623
views
Can inner electrons get excited? Can an already excited electron get excited again without first dropping to a lower energy level?
Is it only the valence electrons that can get excited or can the inner electrons get excited too?
Plus, say for example can a electron of a hydrogen atom go from n=2 to n=3 without first returning to ...
- 77
2
votes
0
answers
100
views
How can energy conservation not be violated in stimulated emission processes?
Fermis golden rule, derived from time-dependent perturbation theory, give the rate for a quantum system, disturbed by a weak harmonic pertubation with frequency $\omega$, to transition from a state $|...
user224659
4
votes
1
answer
178
views
How do we detect infinitely narrow emission / absorption lines within continuous electromagnetic spectra?
This always bothered me, especially in the case of absorption lines. for instance, if you have a blackbody emitting a continuous spectrum, and then a filter in front that only filters out one very ...
- 41
2
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Calculating the intensity of an emission spectrum line
I'm writing a program which generates the emission spectrum of an element with atomic number $Z$. To do this, I have used the equation:
$$\frac{1}{\lambda} = R_{\infty}Z^2\left(\frac{1}{n_1^2}-\frac{...
- 572
3
votes
0
answers
108
views
Estimating temperature with Boltzmann relation with split emission lines
I'm trying to estimate the temperature of a plasma through the use of hydrogen lines, $H_{\alpha}$ and $H_{\beta}$ using the Boltzmann relation:
$$ \frac{ n_{2} }{ n_{1} } = \frac{ g_{2} }{ g_{1} }e^...
- 231