When hydrogen atom excites from ground state what happens to its kinetic and potential energies?
1 Answer
Well, as the electron in the hydrogen atom gets excited, energy put into it that causes such an excitation (e.g. a laser!) transforms into kinetic energy
The higher the electron gets in energy, the more these energies balance out, i.e.
#overbrace(K)^"Used to excite" + overbrace(V)^"Holds electron in atom" >= V# where
#V = -e^2/(4piepsilon_0r) < 0# is the coulombic potential energy enforced by the hydrogen atom nucleus interacting with the electron. Here,#K# can be greater than#V# .
Now suppose you add energy until you ionize the atom.
The electron starts as the
The more energy you put into exciting the atom, the larger
When
#K_"xs" = overbrace(K)^"Used to ionize atom" + overbrace(V)^"Holds electron in atom" >= 0#
And in that case, this resembles what is known from the photoelectric effect:
#K_"xs" = hnu - phi >= 0# where
#hnu# is the incoming light energy and#phi# is the threshold energy#hnu_0# , or the work function.
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