from Part Four - Ions and Photons in the Cosmos
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2025
The energy structures and transition energies of single-electron atoms and ions are presented. Five Nobel Prizes in Physics were awarded for the theories discussed in this chapter. We first review the Bohr model, which was based on quantized angular momentum and classical circular orbits. The wave model of Schrödinger followed, in which spherical boundary conditions quantized polar and azimuthal standing waves. The energies were identical to Bohr’s, but transition selection rules dictated the change in angular momentum of the system during absorption and emission. Dirac incorporated electron spin and relativistic energies, resulting in energy shifts and fine structure splitting of the energy levels for non-zero angular momentum states. Feynman and Swinger incorporated quantization of the electric vector potential. This physics broke energy degeneracies in the Dirac model and correctly predicted the famous Lamb shift. In this chapter, each of these models are described in detail. The final full characterization of the energy levels and transitions are presented. The chapter ends with a discussion on isotope shifting and transitions to the continuum (ionization/recombination).
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