HOMEWORK 7

THE STERN-GERLACH EXPERIMENT

Some heated silver atoms are sent to the apparatus where we have an inhomogeneous magnetic
field.

The silver atom consists of a nucleus and 47 electrons, we see that the atom as a whole has an
angular momentum, which is due to the spin, angular momentum of the single 47th (5s) electron. In
other words, the magnetic moment of the atom is proportional t oto the electron spin. Since the
magnetic energy of the magnetic moment with the magnetic field is −⃗ μ.⃗
B , the z -component of the
force felt by the atom is

∂ ∂ Bz
Fz= ( ⃗μ . ⃗
B ) =μz ,
∂z ∂z
in which we have neglected the components of  ⃗ B other than z . With the arrangement of the figure
above, the μ z <0(S z >0) atom feels an upward force. Then the beam gets split according to the
values of μ z. In other words, the Stern-Gerlach apparatus measures the z -component of S.

THE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE

Any two electrons in an atom cannot have equal quantum numbers. The nature of the principle
comes from the following idea. Let’s assume that electrons 1 and 2 are in states a and b respectively.
The wavefunction of the whole system would be

ψ=ψ 1 ( a ) ψ 2 ( b ) .

But clearly this wavefunction is invalid since the electrons are indistinguishable. This leads us to use a
linear combination of two possibilities:

ψ=ψ 1 ( a ) ψ 2 ( b )−ψ 1 ( b ) ψ 2 ( a ) .

The minus sign in the above is caused by the fermionic characteristics of electrons and that minus
sign makes the wavefunction to vanish identically if both states are a or b. This implies that it is not
possible for both electrons to occupy the same state.
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES

We have two different cases to satisfy the following equality:

¿ ψ (r 1 , r 2)|2=¿ ψ (r 2 , r 1)|2
Symmetric case:

ψ ( r 1 ,r 2 ) =ψ ( r 2 , r 1 ) .

Anti-symmetric case:

ψ ( r 1 ,r 2 ) =−ψ ( r 2 ,r 1 ) .

It turns out that the particles having symmetric wavefunctions are said to be bosons. Similarly, the
particles having anti-symmetric wavefunctions are said to be fermions.

0
−¿,Z ¿
Examples for Bosons: Photon, Gluon, W +¿ ,W ¿
, Higgs, Graviton (😊).

Examples for Fermions: Electron, Up Quark, Down Quark, Charm Quark.

Is There another Family except Bosons and Fermions?

Representations of SO(3) have integers. We use it since angular momentum or spin is referring to
the group of rotations. In addition, representations of SU (2) may have the same as SO ( 3 ) since
these two groups are algebraically isomorphic. Luckily, SU (2 ) is a double cover of SO(3) which
implies the existence of the half-integer spins. So in a 3-space, we don’t have another particle family.

PROPERTIES OF THE PERIODIC TABLE

We call the columns of the periodic table group, and the rows of the periodic table period.

Moving left to right within a period or upward within a group, the first ionization generally increases.

Moving left to right across a period or downward within a group, the atomic Radius of atoms
generally increases.

REFERENCES:

Sakurai, J. J., & Napolitano, J. (2021). Modern Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge University
Press.

Liboff, R. L. (2015). Introductory quantum mechanics. Pearson Education.

Beiser, A. (1963). Concepts of modern physics. New York u.a.: McGraw-Hill.

Krane, K. S. (1983). Modern physics. Estados Unidos: John Wiley.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. III Ch. 5: Spin One. (n.d.).
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_05.html.