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Each energy level, or electron shell, or orbit, is designated by an integer, n as shown in the figure. The Bohr model was later replaced by quantum mechanics in which the electron occupies an atomic orbital rather than an orbit, but the allowed energy levels of the hydrogen atom remained the same as in the earlier theory.
In physics and chemistry, the Lyman series is a hydrogen spectral series of transitions and resulting ultraviolet emission lines of the hydrogen atom as an electron goes from n ≥ 2 to n = 1 (where n is the principal quantum number), the lowest energy level of the electron (groundstate).
Computed energy level spectrum of hydrogen as a function of the electric field near n = 15 for magnetic quantum number m = 0. Each n level consists of n − 1 degenerate sublevels; application of an electric field breaks the degeneracy. Energy levels can cross due to underlying symmetries of motion in the Coulomb potential.
The energy spectrum of a system with such discrete energy levels is said to be quantized. In chemistry and atomic physics, an electron shell, or principal energy level, may be thought of as the orbit of one or more electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the "1 shell" (also called "K shell"), followed by ...
The hydrogen spectral series can be expressed simply in terms of the Rydberg constant for hydrogen and the Rydberg formula. In atomic physics , Rydberg unit of energy , symbol Ry, corresponds to the energy of the photon whose wavenumber is the Rydberg constant, i.e. the ionization energy of the hydrogen atom in a simplified Bohr model.
The Balmer equation predicts the four visible spectral lines of hydrogen with high accuracy. Balmer's equation inspired the Rydberg equation as a generalization of it, and this in turn led physicists to find the Lyman, Paschen, and Brackett series, which predicted other spectral lines of hydrogen found outside the visible spectrum.
The energy difference Lamb and Retherford found was a rise of about 1000 MHz (0.03 cm −1) of the 2 S 1/2 level above the 2 P 1/2 level. This particular difference is a one-loop effect of quantum electrodynamics , and can be interpreted as the influence of virtual photons that have been emitted and re-absorbed by the atom.
Although the Rydberg formula was developed to describe atomic energy levels, it has been used to describe many other systems that have electronic structure roughly similar to atomic hydrogen. [2] In general, at sufficiently high principal quantum numbers , an excited electron-ionic core system will have the general character of a hydrogenic ...