Atomic hydrogen in a uniform magnetic field: Low-lying energy levels for fields below 10⁹ G

Authors

Anthony F. Starace, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Gary L. Webster, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Date of this Version

April 1979

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. A 19, 1629 (1979). http://pra.aps.org. Copyright © 1979 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

The wave function for an electron in combined Coulomb and uniform magnetic fields is expanded in oblatespheroidal angle functions. The resulting Schrödinger equation for the radial function is solved for the energy levels by means of two different adiabatic approximations, which yield rigorous lower and upper bounds on the lowest exact energy levels for each symmetry state of the system. Results are presented for the level and binding energies of hydrogenic 1s, 2s, and 2p levels for magnetic fields in the range 10⁷≤B≲10¹¹ G and compared with results of other authors. These results indicate that the present adiabatic approximation methods employing spherical symmetry may be expected to give reliable results for energies of low-lying hydrogenic levels for magnetic fields in the range 0≤B≲10⁹ G.