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?
Mistake in '96 exam Q41
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Re: Mistake in '96 exam Q41
yes, there seem to be a typo, 3 should be 2 for 2S+1 , other than that everything is finenoospace 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?