Excited state
Encyclopedia
Energy level
A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound -- that is, confined spatially—can only take on certain discrete values of energy. This contrasts with classical particles, which can have any energy. These discrete values are called energy levels...
which is often associated with an atom being excited to an excited state.
In quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
an excited state of a system (such as an atom
Atom
The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
, molecule
Molecule
A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...
or nucleus
Atomic nucleus
The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The...
) is any quantum state of the system that has a higher energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
than the ground state
Ground state
The ground state of a quantum mechanical system is its lowest-energy state; the energy of the ground state is known as the zero-point energy of the system. An excited state is any state with energy greater than the ground state...
(that is, more energy than the absolute minimum).
The temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
of a group of particles is indicative of the level of excitation (with the notable exception of systems that exhibit Negative temperature
Negative temperature
In physics, certain systems can achieve negative temperatures; that is, their thermodynamic temperature can be a negative quantity. Negative temperatures can be expressed as negative numbers on the kelvin scale....
).
The lifetime of a system in an excited state is usually short: spontaneous
Spontaneous emission
Spontaneous emission is the process by which a light source such as an atom, molecule, nanocrystal or nucleus in an excited state undergoes a transition to a state with a lower energy, e.g., the ground state and emits a photon...
or induced emission
Stimulated emission
In optics, stimulated emission is the process by which an atomic electron interacting with an electromagnetic wave of a certain frequency may drop to a lower energy level, transferring its energy to that field. A photon created in this manner has the same phase, frequency, polarization, and...
of a quantum of energy (such as a photon
Photon
In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic interaction and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is also the force carrier for the electromagnetic force...
or a phonon
Phonon
In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, such as solids and some liquids...
) usually occurs shortly after the system is promoted to the excited state, returning the system to a state with lower energy (a less excited state or the ground state). This return to a lower energy level is often loosely described as decay and is the inverse of excitation.
Long-lived excited states are often called metastable. Long-lived nuclear isomer
Nuclear isomer
A nuclear isomer is a metastable state of an atomic nucleus caused by the excitation of one or more of its nucleons . "Metastable" refers to the fact that these excited states have half-lives more than 100 to 1000 times the half-lives of the other possible excited nuclear states...
s and singlet oxygen
Singlet oxygen
Singlet oxygen is the common name used for the diamagnetic form of molecular oxygen , which is less stable than the normal triplet oxygen. Because of its unusual properties, singlet oxygen can persist for over an hour at room temperature, depending on the environment...
are two examples of this.
Atomic excitation
A simple example of this concept comes by considering the hydrogen atomHydrogen atom
A hydrogen atom is an atom of the chemical element hydrogen. The electrically neutral atom contains a single positively-charged proton and a single negatively-charged electron bound to the nucleus by the Coulomb force...
.
The ground state of the hydrogen atom corresponds to having the atom's single electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
in the lowest possible orbit
Atomic orbital
An atomic orbital is a mathematical function that describes the wave-like behavior of either one electron or a pair of electrons in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in any specific region around the atom's nucleus...
(that is, the spherically symmetric "1s" wavefunction
Wavefunction
Not to be confused with the related concept of the Wave equationA wave function or wavefunction is a probability amplitude in quantum mechanics describing the quantum state of a particle and how it behaves. Typically, its values are complex numbers and, for a single particle, it is a function of...
, which has the lowest possible quantum number
Quantum number
Quantum numbers describe values of conserved quantities in the dynamics of the quantum system. Perhaps the most peculiar aspect of quantum mechanics is the quantization of observable quantities. This is distinguished from classical mechanics where the values can range continuously...
s). By giving the atom additional energy (for example, by the absorption of a photon
Photon
In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic interaction and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is also the force carrier for the electromagnetic force...
of an appropriate energy), the electron is able to move into an excited state (one with one or more quantum numbers greater than the minimum possible). If the photon has too much energy, the electron will cease to be bound
Bound state
In physics, a bound state describes a system where a particle is subject to a potential such that the particle has a tendency to remain localised in one or more regions of space...
to the atom, and the atom will become ion
Ion
An ion is an atom or molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving it a net positive or negative electrical charge. The name was given by physicist Michael Faraday for the substances that allow a current to pass between electrodes in a...
ised.
After excitation the atom may return to the ground state or a lower excited state, by emitting a photon with a characteristic energy. Emission of photons from atoms in various excited states leads to an electromagnetic spectrum
Electromagnetic spectrum
The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The "electromagnetic spectrum" of an object is the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that particular object....
showing a series of characteristic emission lines (including, in the case of the hydrogen atom, the Lyman, Balmer, Paschen and Brackett series
Hydrogen spectral series
The emission spectrum of atomic hydrogen is divided into a number of spectral series, with wavelengths given by the Rydberg formula. These observed spectral lines are due to electrons moving between energy levels in the atom. The spectral series are important in astronomy for detecting the presence...
.)
An atom in a high excited state is termed Rydberg atom
Rydberg atom
thumb|right|300px|Figure 1: Energy levels in atomic [[lithium]] showing the Rydberg series of the lowest 3 values of [[Angular momentum#Angular momentum in quantum mechanics|orbital angular momentum]] converging on the first ionization energy....
. A system of highly excited atoms can form a long-lived condensed excited state e.g. a condensed phase made completely of excited atoms: Rydberg matter
Rydberg matter
Rydberg matter is a phase of matter formed by Rydberg atoms; it was predicted around 1980 by É. A. Manykin, M. I. Ozhovan and P. P. Poluéktov. It has been formed from various elements like caesium, potassium, hydrogen and nitrogen; studies have been conducted on theoretical possibilities like...
. Hydrogen can also be excited by heat or electricity.
Perturbed gas excitation
A collection of molecules forming a gas can be considered in an excited state if one or more molecules are elevated to kinetic energy levels such that the resulting velocity distribution departs from the equilibrium Boltzmann distributionBoltzmann distribution
In chemistry, physics, and mathematics, the Boltzmann distribution is a certain distribution function or probability measure for the distribution of the states of a system. It underpins the concept of the canonical ensemble, providing its underlying distribution...
. This phenomenon has been studied in the case of a two-dimensional gas
Two-dimensional gas
A two-dimensional gas is a collection of N objects which are constrained to move in a planar or other two-dimensional space in a gaseous state. The objects can be: ideal gas elements such as rigid disks undergoing elastic collisions; elementary particles, or any object in physics which obeys laws...
in some detail, analyzing the time taken to relax to equilibrium.
Calculation of excited states
Excited states are often calculated using Coupled clusterCoupled cluster
Coupled cluster is a numerical technique used for describing many-body systems. Its most common use is as one of several quantum chemical post-Hartree–Fock ab initio quantum chemistry methods in the field of computational chemistry...
, Møller–Plesset perturbation theory, Multi-configurational self-consistent field
Multi-configurational self-consistent field
Multi-configurational self-consistent field is a method in quantum chemistry used to generate qualitatively correct reference states of molecules in cases where Hartree–Fock and density functional theory are not adequate...
, Configuration interaction
Configuration interaction
Configuration interaction is a post-Hartree–Fock linear variational method for solving the nonrelativistic Schrödinger equation within the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for a quantum chemical multi-electron system. Mathematically, configuration simply describes the linear combination...
, and Time-dependent density functional theory
Time-dependent density functional theory
Time-dependent density functional theory is a quantum mechanical theory used in physics and chemistry to investigate the properties and dynamics of many-body systems in the presence of time-dependent potentials, such as electric or magnetic fields...
. These calculations are more
difficult than non-excited state calculations.
Reaction
A further consequence is reaction of the atom in the excited state, as in photochemistryMechanistic organic photochemistry
Mechanistic organic photochemistry is that aspect of organic photochemistry which seeks to explain the mechanisms of organic photochemical reactions. The absorption of ultraviolet light by organic molecules very often leads to reactions. In the earliest days sunlight was employed while in more...
. Excited states give rise to chemical reaction.
