Hydrogen, atomic fine structure

The hydrogen atom and one-electron ions are the simplest systems in the sense that, having only one electron, there are no inter-electron repulsions. However, this unique property leads to degeneracies, or near-degeneracies, which are absent in all other atoms and ions. The result is that the spectrum of the hydrogen atom, although very simple in its coarse structure (Figure 1.1) is more unusual in its fine structure than those of polyelectronic atoms. For this reason we shall defer a discussion of its spectrum to the next section. 

Lamb, W.E., Retherford, R.C., 1947, Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom by a Microwave Method, Phys. Rev. 72, 241 Mandel, L., Wolf, R, 1995, Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics, Cambridge University Press Newton, 1952, Opticks, Dover... 

C-NMR refers to recording another NMR-spectrum but of the C-13 atoms rather than the hydrogen atoms. In actual practice, however, - these spectra are recorded in such a manner that each chemically distinct carbon gives rise to single peak, without any coupling or fine structure . 

An atomic unit of length used in quantum mechanical calculations of electronic wavefunctions. It is symbolized by o and is equivalent to the Bohr radius, the radius of the smallest orbit of the least energetic electron in a Bohr hydrogen atom. The bohr is equal to where a is the fine-structure constant, n is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is the Rydberg constant. The parameter a includes h, as well as the electron s rest mass and elementary charge, and the permittivity of a vacuum. One bohr equals 5.29177249 x 10 meter (or, about 0.529 angstroms). 

The results of site-directed mutagenesis analysis of zinc ligands of higher plant p-carbonic anhydrase and of P. purpureum carbonic anhydrase have confirmed that zinc is essential for catalysis. X-ray fine structure data indicated that a water molecule is hydrogen bonded to the zinc-ligated Asp-151 and Asp-405. The water molecule is not directly coordinated to the zinc atom. A possible catalytic mechanism of C02 hydration cycle (211) has been proposed as given in Scheme 10. 

Reactions within a van der Waals (vdW) complex of calcium with hydrogen halides (HC1 and HBr) lead to electronically excited calcium halides. These reactions have been quite extensively studied in full collisions of excited calcium beams (Brinckmann et al. 1980 Brinckmann and Telle 1977 Rettner and Zare 1981, 1982 Telle and Brinckmann 1990). The electronic excitation of the calcium atom results in a strong chemiluminescence under collisional conditions. The efficiency of this chemiluminescence depends upon the electronic state and the fine structure component, and the final product state is influenced by the preparation conditions of the collision. In the reaction Ca(4s4p1P1) + HC1, the direction of the polarization of the P orbital with respect to the collision relative velocity (pK or pff) has an effect on the branching ratio to the products CaCl, A2n or B2X+ (Rettner and Zare 1981, 1982). 

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