Quantization of the momentum of an electromagnetic field in atoms and selection rules for optical transitions
S. A. Pyroha
The existing methods for calculating the energy of stationary states relate it to the energy of the electron, considering it negative in the atom. Formally, choosing a point that corresponds to zero potential energy you can assign a negative value to the electron energy. However, this approach does not answer many other questions, for example, the actual value of the energy of stationary states is unknown, but only the difference in energies between stationary states is known; the concept of “minimum energy of the system” loses its meaning (choosing the origin of the energy reference, we replace the minimum with the maximum, or vice versa); the physical reason for the stability of stationary states is not clear; it is impossible to reveal the physical reason for the introduction of selection rules, since the Heisenberg uncertainty relations exclude the analysis of the transition mechanism, replacing it with the concept of a “quantum leap”. Let us show that the energy of stationary states is the energy of a spherical capacitor, the covers of which are spheres whose radii are equal to the radius of the nuclear and corresponding stationary state. The energy of the ground state in the hydrogen atom is 0.8563997 MeV. The presence of charges and a magnetic field presupposes the circulation of energy in the volume of the atom (the Poynting vector is not zero). Revealed quantization of the angular momentum of the electromagnetic field in stationary states is [Formula: see text]. The change in the angular momentum of the electromagnetic field during transitions between stationary states in atoms removes the physical grounds for introducing selection rules. The analysis shows that the Heisenberg uncertainty relations are not universal, and their application in each specific case must be justified.
International Journal of Modern Physics B•Sep 6, 2021•1 citation