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The electron's charge acts like it is smeared out in space in a continuous distribution, proportional at any point to the squared magnitude of the electron's wave function. Particle-like properties: The number of electrons orbiting a nucleus can be only an integer. Electrons jump between orbitals like particles.
Later experiments showed that these light-quanta also carry momentum and, thus, can be considered particles: The photon concept was born, leading to a deeper understanding of the electric and magnetic fields themselves. The Maxwell wave theory, however, does not account for all properties of light.
The wave-like nature of the electron allows it to pass through two parallel slits simultaneously, rather than just one slit as would be the case for a classical particle. In quantum mechanics, the wave-like property of one particle can be described mathematically as a complex -valued function, the wave function , commonly denoted by the Greek ...
"Vector cones" of total angular momentum J (purple), orbital L (blue), and spin S (green). The cones arise due to quantum uncertainty between measuring angular momentum component. Due to the spin–orbit interaction in an atom, the orbital angular momentum no longer commutes with the Hamiltonian, nor does the spin. These therefore change over time.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. [2]: 1.1 It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
In practice, the position-space wave function is used much more often than the momentum-space wave function. The potential entering the relevant equation (Schrödinger, Dirac, etc.) determines in which basis the description is easiest. For the harmonic oscillator, x and p enter symmetrically, so there it does not matter which description one ...
In atomic physics, a term symbol is an abbreviated description of the total spin and orbital angular momentum quantum numbers of the electrons in a multi-electron atom.So while the word symbol suggests otherwise, it represents an actual value of a physical quantity.
The total energy and momentum of the initial pair are conserved in the process and distributed among a set of other particles in the final state. Antiparticles have exactly opposite additive quantum numbers from particles, so the sums of all quantum numbers of such an original pair are zero.