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circular state

noun

Etymology

Named after the torus-like shape of the valence electron orbital in these states, which resembles a classical circular orbit.

Definitions

  1. Any of those quantum states of an atom, which has a high principal quantum number n, and…

    Any of those quantum states of an atom, which has a high principal quantum number n, and a magnetic quantum number m_l with the maximum possible magnitude, |m_l|=n-1.

    • […] [T]he selection rules on the Auger and X-ray transition probabilities tend to populate preferentially the circular states, that is those for which the orbital angular momentum l is given by l#61;n-1.
    • So-called circular states with the maximal angular momentum L#61;n-1 can have lifetimes exceeding 100 s, 10⁶ times longer than those of low-L states, in appropriately engineered environments.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for circular state. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA