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  4. different colours from single atom at same time...??
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different colours from single atom at same time...??

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Offline lightarrow

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Re: different colours from single atom at same time...??
« Reply #20 on: 20/02/2013 20:42:31 »
Quote from: techmind on 19/02/2013 23:21:53
Yes, if the electrons move not with pure sinusoidal motion, but with a composite motion then of course they'll emit (or reflect) multiple wavelength photons simultanously (on a classical scale, at least).
Ok with the multiple wavelength simultanously; but this doesn't necessarily mean "multiple photons of different wavelength simultanously". The reason is that a photon can have a spectrum of different wavelengths; actually, it's very unprobable that a real photon has an exact wavelength. In general it is in a superposition of different states of exact wavelength each.

From the Heisenberg relation 33156e57581d7961f30a3d0e802ef576.gif>~1 where 4fdefba26320686bb2bd0579a0df421c.gif is the frequency, you can deduce the minimum value of f66fa3ec46299569397fb4a4ba788b72.gif for a single photon emitted by an atom in the time 5a72f1304af0783657605aed0e38201a.gif.
Example: an electron in an atom decays from an excited to the fundamental level tipically in 10-8 s. It means that photon has a spectrum with f66fa3ec46299569397fb4a4ba788b72.gif > 108 Hz.

Lasers generats much more monochromatic photons because the excited levels (called "metastable") decays in a much longer time.
« Last Edit: 20/02/2013 20:49:31 by lightarrow »
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Re: different colours from single atom at same time...??
« Reply #21 on: 21/02/2013 09:20:08 »
Lightarrow has explained very well(for me, obviously)...
I haven't completely understood what you all have said but still it has cleared my doubts at some extents.

I want to raise another question... new thread continued at How can transparent glass act like a mirror? ...mod
« Last Edit: 21/02/2013 10:35:40 by evan_au »
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