Degenerate Energy States

Initializing live version
Download to Desktop

Requires a Wolfram Notebook System

Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.

The probability function is used to determine the energy of a system, which is based on the quantum numbers and , and varies as +. The plot shows how the probability function changes with different values of and . The total energy of the system is shown in the bottom‐left corner. Different values of and can be chosen to give the same values of . When different sets of quantum numbers lead to the same energy state, the system is said to be degenerate.

Contributed by: Douglas Kellis (Boise State University) (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


Snapshots


Details

Snapshots 1 and 2: two-fold degenerate states occur when different values of and produce the same energy level; in this case

Snapshots 3, 4 and 5: three-fold degenerate states occur when different values of and produce the same energy level; in this case



Feedback (field required)
Email (field required) Name
Occupation Organization
Note: Your message & contact information may be shared with the author of any specific Demonstration for which you give feedback.
Send