Helium atom emission spectrum

In the helium atom emission spectrum, the convergence limit occurs at a wavelength of... 

Fig. 13.10 Sonoluminescence spectrum of potassium-atom emission from helium-saturated KC1 aqueous solution at 148 kHz. The spectrum shows slightly asymmetric broadening toward blue side, which is in contrast with the potassium line in argon-saturated solution...

Because helium forms no compounds and is almost absent in the Earth s atmosphere, it was unknown for a long time. The first clue leading to its discovery was an unidentified yellow emission line in the solar chromospheric spectrum observed by French astronomer Pierre Janssen during an eclipse of the Sun in 1868. Lockyer named the unknown element helium for the Greek sun god, helios. Subsequendy it was discovered to be rather abundant in radioactive rocks, where it is trapped after emission from uranium series alpha decays. Ramsay and Soddy showed that the alpha rays were helium atoms whose electrons had been stripped away. In his biography of Lord Rutherford, A. S. Eve wrote ... 

In 1868 the French physicist Pierre Janssen detected a new dark line in the solar emission spectrum that did not match the emission lines of known elements. The name helium (from the Greek helios, meaning the sun) was given to the element responsible for the absorption line. Twenty-seven years later, helium was discovered on Earth by the British chemist William Ramsay in a mineral of uranium. On Earth, the only source of helium is through radioactive decay processes—a particles emitted during nuclear decay are eventually converted to helium atoms. 

The spectacular success of Bohr s theory was followed by a series of disappointments. Bohr s approach did not account for the emission spectra of atoms containing more than one electron, such as atoms of helium and lithium. Nor did it explain why extra lines appear in the hydrogen emission spectrum when a magnetic field is applied. Another problem arose with the discovery that electrons are wavelike How can the position of a wave be specified We cannot define the precise location of a wave because a wave extends in space. 

Helium was identified by its characteristic emission spectrum as a component of the sun before it was found on earth. The major sources of helium on earth are natural gas deposits, where helium was formed from the a-particle decay of radioactive elements. The a particle is a helium nucleus that can easily pick up electrons from the environment to form a helium atom. Although helium forms no compounds, it is an important substance that is used as a coolant, as a pressurizing gas for rocket fuels, as a diluent in the gases used for deep-sea diving and spaceship atmospheres, and as the gas in lighter-than-air airships (blimps). 

Q4 What information about the structure of a helium atom can be gained from its emission spectrum ... 

Discuss the energy-level diagram and the spectrum of the helium atom. Which types of emission lines are seen in the spectrum The calcium atom... 

Consider the two emission spectra shown in Figure 6.22. The spectrum of helium contains more lines than that of hydrogen. This indicates that there are more possible transitions, corresponding to emission in the visible range, in a helium atom than in a hydrogen atom. This is due to the splitting of energy levels caused by electrostatic interactions between helium s two electrons. 

The main aim of this paper is to review the CDW-EIS model used commonly in the decription of heavy particle collisions. A theoretical description of the CDW-EIS model is presented in section 2. In section 3 we discuss the suitablity of the CDW-EIS model to study the characteristics of ultra-low and low energy electrons ejected from fast heavy-ion helium, neon and argon atom collisions. There are some distinct characteristics based on two-centre electron emission that may be identified in this spectrum. This study also allows us to examine the dependence of the cross sections on the initial state wave function of multi-electron targets and as such is important in aiding our understanding of the ionization process. 

This system forms highly ionized so-called Penning mixtures [12,13]. The higher excited states of Hj are partly stable and partly unstable, depending on the quantum numbers of the electron present. The stable excited states have, however, only very shallow minima of the potential curves [14]. That is the reason why no spectrum of Hj is observed for the helium plasma jet. The argon excited neutrals, on the other hand, cannot ionize hydrogen atoms or molecules, but could produce excited H2 molecules, which can be detected by optical emission spectroscopy. 

Between 1912 and 1925, Bohr s theory of the atom gave rise to a conceptual framework for the study of matter on many fronts. Applying the theory to predict the energy levels and therefore the emission frequencies of atoms more complicated than hydrogen—say, helium with two electrons, lithium with three, and so on— led to the concept of electronic shells about the nucleus, the outer shell less tightly bound, and it is these outer-shell electrons that determine the element s spectrum. It should be pointed out that the theory was not fully successful in predicting the spectral lines of the elements that are more complicated than hydrogen. 

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