Sunday 29 March 2020

electromagnetism - What happens if you try to apply Maxwell's Equations to this quantum mechanical system?


In another post, we discussed the oscillating charge in a hydrogen atom and the weight of opinion seemed to be that there is indeed an oscillating charge when you consider the superposition of the 1s and 2p states. One of the correspondents (freecharly) went a little farther and said that Schroedinger believed this oscillating charge to be the source of radiation. I wonder if the actual calculation bears this out? Specifically, in the case of the hydrogen atom in this particular superposition, do you get the correct decay times for the superposition of states if you apply Maxwell's equations to the oscillating charge and assume that as the system loses energy by radiation, the "probability" flows from the 2p to the 1s state in accordance with the amount of energy remaining in the system?


EDIT: Some people are objecting in different ways to the basic premise of the question, so let me make it a little more specific: I am not asking if hydrogen atoms ACTUALLY EXIST in a particular superposition of these states. (I may ask that in another question.) What I am asking here is IF you take (just to be specific) a 50-50 superposition of the 1s and 2p states, and apply Maxwell's equations to the oscillating charge, AND you assume that as the atom radiates the probability drains from the excited state to the ground state in such a way as to maintain conservation of energy...IF you do all those things, do you get a result that is consistent with standard QM?




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