The magical creation of the photon.

[Little Bang]

I'm going to describe what I know of the process that produces the infrared photon and let someone fill in the gaps that I have or correct anything I have wrong.

I have two hydrogen atoms on a collision course at some low velocity. When the fields of each atom get to some point in their approach each electron jumps to a higher energy level and then as they began to separate each electron falls back to the lower energy level and creates a complete infrared waveform with a crest and trough. Could someone please elaborate on this to give us a good description of each step in this event?

[Little Bang]

Great thread, I couldn't even spell creation.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Little Bang

Great thread, I couldn't even spell creation.

Just to remind everyone, while proper spelling and grammar might help, no one here--well no one with any *manners* (and those that lack them don't last very long in most cases!)--cares if you can spell. Most folks around here have English as their second or third language, so its really unimportant...

Now I know absolutely nothing about this topic, so I'll yield the floor to someone (with good manners!) who does...

At the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, we teach you that there's more to life than being really, really good looking,
Buffy

[billby]

Originally Posted by Little Bang

and then as they began to separate each electron falls back to the lower energy level and creates a complete infrared waveform with a crest and trough. Could someone please elaborate on this to give us a good description of each step in this event?

the only thing i can think to add is that the electron will drop specifically into the third energy level of a hydrogen atom when photons in the infra-red spectrum are emitted. A small point but apparently it was significant enough for me to have to learn it for my physics exam that i put behind me about a month ago.

P.S. i have a dictionary sitting next to me and i still make plenty of spelling mistakes, making me a prime example of laziness.

[Little Bang]

Come on guy's and gal's, this should be a piece of cake for such an elegant theory as the standard model.

[snoopy]

To describe this properly you need to have
the dirac equation

Dirac equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and the free maxwell equations

Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

sorry I dont know how to write equations in this editor havent figured it out yet

In 1928 when dirac put his equation forward the only particles known to science were the electron proton and photon.

The free maxwell equations describe the photon which in 1927 Jordan and Pauli provided an overall scheme for describing free photons according to a quantized free field maxwell theory.

Dirac's equation seemed to describe both electron and photon.

The EM interaction describing how electrons and protons are influenced by photons was handled by diracs gauge idea

Quantum field theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If dirac style protons and electrons interacting merely electromagnetically were the only constiuents of atoms then atoms would immediately disintegrate.

In 1932 Chadwick discoverd the neutron and it was realised there must be a strong force binding neutrons and protons together
Radioactivity was desribed in another interaction the weak force.

Many other particles have been added since then

positron neutrino muons pions kaons lambda and sigma particles
omega minus particle antiparticles quarks gluons and W and Z bosons.

The modern theory also demands transient entities called virtual pair particles to exist..


So the Standard Model is as you can see far from elegant.

As for your question on desribing the production of infrared waves from the electron this comes under QED and would involve feynmann diagrams , I have no idea how to display feynmann diagrams on this thing so I will pass it over to someone who does.

Adios
True Beleivers

[Little Bang]

Snoopy I appreciate your efforts and admire your obvious knowledge of the situation. I guess my point is that all the equations and diagrams make excellent predictions about this process, they do not describe the actual event. An example would be an automobile collision, we can visualize what actually transpires during this event, metal gets bent and mashed, passengers get hurt and things that we can use words to explain happen. I would like someone to give a verbal description like they were in front of a high school first year physics class.

[Qfwfq]

Actually the Dirac equation isn't so necessary for the case under discussion. The non-relativistic Schrödinger equation with a time dependent potential term ought to be fine enough.

Originally Posted by Little Bang

they do not describe the actual event.

True, it would be very complicated to discuss the exact details of this type of thing, although not inconceivable. It would require a lot of numerical calculation. It isn't difficult to qualitatively describe transitions between energy eigenstates, for the fixed Coulomb potential, as discussed in, for example, the Eisberg Resnick textbook. This is simple compared with actually integrating the differential equation.

[Little Bang]

I think everyone made a good effort at helping me out and I appreciate it. Those efforts have I think, illustrated my point. We do not have an understanding of the steps that produce a photon. The equations work beautifully but they do not paint (the picture is worth a thousand words). In my opinion we are missing an important piece of information about the relationship between the electron and proton. What that might be I don't know. I hope that someone somewhere will answer that question before I die.

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by Little Bang

I think everyone made a good effort at helping me out and I appreciate it. Those efforts have I think, illustrated my point. We do not have an understanding of the steps that produce a photon. The equations work beautifully but they do not paint (the picture is worth a thousand words). In my opinion we are missing an important piece of information about the relationship between the electron and proton. What that might be I don't know. I hope that someone somewhere will answer that question before I die.

Ok I will try a different tack,

The atom consists of the nucleus and electrtons
these electrons around the atomic nucleus can only exist at certain energy levels.

For simplicity we can call these energy levels 'Shells'

When an electron 'jumps' between 'Shells' it releases an electromagnetic wave in other words a 'photon' given by the relationship E=hv.

The link between electrons and protons is they are both fermions with half integer spin.

I hope this helps

Peace