Thehydrogen atom in an electric field and in crossed electric and magnetic fields: Closed-orbit theory and semiclassical quantization

Author: Bartsch, Thomas Göttingen, 01. January 2002 pages: 212 edition: 1 language: ISBN-10: 3898735184 ISBN-13: 9783898735186 allocated areas: Physik source of supply Print Version 29,00 € 24.65 in the shopping basket eBook (2958.3 kB) 29 in the shopping basket

Kurzbeschreibung

Ever since the early days of quantum mechanics, the correspondence between classical trajectories and atomic spectra has been a question of fundamental interest and importance. However, in spite of numerous efforts a general semiclassical quantization scheme is still unavailable.The hydrogen atom in external electric and magnetic fields has become a prototype example for semiclassical studies. Closed-orbit theory provides a semiclassical description of atomic photo-absorption spectra in terms of closed classical trajectories. In this work, the closed orbits of the hydrogen atom in crossed electric and magnetic fields and their bifurcations are studied in detail. A semiclassical quantization of the crossed-fields hydrogen atom based on closed-orbit theory is carried out. As a major result, a semiclassical quantization scheme is introduced that allows the inclusion of uniform approximations. Its efficacy is demonstrated by way of example of the hydrogen atom in an electric field in a spectral region where bifurcations of closed orbits abound. The novel quantization scheme does not impose any conditions on the classical dynamics of the system under study. It can thus be regarded as a truly universal tool for the semiclassical quantization of arbitrary systems.