In another post, I claimed that there was obviously an oscillating charge in a hydrogen atom when you took the superposition of a 1s and a 2p state. One of the respected members of this community (John Rennie) challenged me on this, saying:
Why do you say there is an oscillating charge distribution for a hydrogen atom in a superposition of 1s and 2p states? I don't see what is doing the oscillating.
Am I the only one that sees an oscillating charge? Or is John Rennie missing something here? I'd like to know what people think.
Answer
The superposition of eigenstates in a hydrogen atom results in an oscillating wave function in time with a frequency corresponding to the difference of energies of the eigenstates. Schrödinger considered for a time the wave function squares as charge density which resulted in an oscillating charge distribution. As this corresponded to an electric dipole oscillation and also explained intensities and polarization of observed light emission, he assumed heuristically that this interpretation explained the origin of light emission. See E. Schrödinger "Collected Papers on Wave Mechanics ", Blackie & Son Ltd., London and Glasgow 1928
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