PHY422 Assignment #2

Date 01/03/2019 Due Date 15/03/2019

1. Q. No 2. Marks

3. 1 An atom in an excited state has a lifetime of 1.2 x 10-8 sec; in a second excited state the 2
lifetime is 2.3 x 10-8 sec. What is the uncertainty in energy for the photon emitted when an
electron makes a transition between these two levels?
4. 2 State, with reasons, which of the following transitions are forbidden for electric dipole 4
transitions
(i) 3D1 → 2F3
(ii) 2P3/2 → 2S1/2
(iii) 2P1/2 → 2S1/2
(iv) 3D2 → 3S1
5. 3 If a hydrogen atom is placed in a magnetic field which is very strong compared to its 4
internal field, its orbital and spin magnetic dipole moments precess independently about
the external field, and its energy depends on the quantum numbers ml and ms which
specify their components along the external field direction.
(a) Evaluate the splitting of the energy levels according to the values of ml and ms.
6. (b) Calculate the strength of the external magnetic field that would produce an energy
difference between the most widely separated n = 2 levels, which equals the difference
between the energies of the n = 1 and n = 2 levels in the absence of the field.
3. 4 4. Estimate the spin-orbit interaction energy in the n = 2, 1= 1 state of a muonic atom, 4
5. 5 6. Determine the expectation values of 1/r and 1/r^2 for the hydrogenic wavefunctions 6
|nlml>. (You may use the Feynman-Hellman theorem)