Chapter 9: Q14P (page 363)
An electron in the state of hydrogen decays by a sequence of (electric dipole) transitions to the ground state.
(a) What decay routes are open to it? Specify them in the following way:
(b) If you had a bottle full of atoms in this state, what fraction of them would decay via each route?
(c) What is the lifetime of this state? Hint: Once it鈥檚 made the first transition, it鈥檚 no longer in the state |300\rangle鈭300鉄, so only the first step in each sequence is relevant in computing the lifetime.
Short Answer
(a)
(b)
(c)