a) Hund鈥檚 first rule says that, consistent with the Pauli principle, the state with the highest total spin (S) will have the lowest energy. What would this predict in the case of the excited states of helium?
(b) Hund鈥檚 second rule says that, for a given spin, the state with the highest total orbital angular momentum (L) , consistent with overall antisymmetrization, will have the lowest energy. Why doesn鈥檛 carbon have? Note that the 鈥渢op of the ladder鈥is symmetric.
(c) Hund鈥檚 third rule says that if a subshellis no more than half filled,
then the lowest energy level has; if it is more than half filled, thenhas the lowest energy. Use this to resolve the boron ambiguity inProblem 5.12(b).
(d) Use Hund鈥檚 rules, together with the fact that a symmetric spin state must go with an antisymmetric position state (and vice versa) to resolve the carbon and nitrogen ambiguities in Problem 5.12(b). Hint: Always go to the 鈥渢op of the ladder鈥 to figure out the symmetry of a state.