Shape of Specral Line At The Optical Decay of An Idealized Atom
The "isolated" quantum system (atom, ion, molecule or even a quantum dot) may have metastable states, weakly coupled to the outer world. (Some couliknd should be taken into account; otherwize, there is no optical decay.) In the idealized case, the evolution of the system is disturbed only by the interaction with the continuum of the modes of the electromagnetic field. Then, the spectral width of the emitted photons is determined by the relaxation rate. For the narrow spectral lines, the decay is almost exponential; then, the profile of the spectral line is determined by the Fourier-transform of the exponential decay of the quantum amplitude of probability that the system is still excited; this profile is Lorentian.
Read more about this topic: Optical Decay
Famous quotes containing the words shape of, shape, line, optical, decay, idealized and/or atom:
“The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.
The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Now, a corpse, poor thing, is an untouchable and the process of decay is, of all pieces of bad manners, the vulgarest imaginable. For a corpse is, by definition, a person absolutely devoid of savoir vivre.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“For women ... bras, panties, bathing suits, and other stereotypical gear are visual reminders of a commercial, idealized feminine image that our real and diverse female bodies can’t possibly fit. Without these visual references, each individual woman’s body demands to be accepted on its own terms. We stop being comparatives. We begin to be unique.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“Let us build altars to the Blessed Unity which holds nature and souls in perfect solution, and compels every atom to serve an universal end.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)