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Mistake in '96 exam Q41

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:56 pm
by noospace
Hi all,

There appears to be some debate on grephysics.net about whether or not there is an error the question.

It states that the 3p electron is in the ^3 P_{3/2} state and is allowed to make a transition to the ^2 S_{1/2} state.

As far as I can tell this is incorrect since 2s + 1 = 2*(1/2) + 1 = 2 for the initial state. Moreover the transition would imply Delta s = -1 which is forbidden for electric dipole transitions.

Comments?

Re: Mistake in '96 exam Q41

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:24 am
by blackcat007
noospace wrote:Hi all,

There appears to be some debate on grephysics.net about whether or not there is an error the question.

It states that the 3p electron is in the ^3 P_{3/2} state and is allowed to make a transition to the ^2 S_{1/2} state.

As far as I can tell this is incorrect since 2s + 1 = 2*(1/2) + 1 = 2 for the initial state. Moreover the transition would imply Delta s = -1 which is forbidden for electric dipole transitions.

Comments?
yes, there seem to be a typo, 3 should be 2 for 2S+1 , other than that everything is fine