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IHateMayonnaise
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Homework Statement
If the energy separation of two states is known for some atom, how can the same energy separation be calculated for the same two states for an ionized atom? i.e. if we know that the difference between the [itex]1s^2[/itex] and the [itex]1s2s[/itex] states in Helium is something like 25eV, how could I use this information to approximate the energy difference between the same two levels of an ionized atom with the same number of electrons, like [itex]Li^+[/itex], or [itex]Be^{2+}[/itex]?
Homework Equations
None
The Attempt at a Solution
Other than doing extensive calculations using perturbation theory and the variational principle, I have no idea how to do this problem. The prompt asks to estimate the energy separation..so even if we know the [itex]\ell[/itex] and [itex]n[/itex] of the two states in question, without plugging it all into the wave function for hydrogen (assuming that this is even valid) and finding the normalization constant and looking up the spherical harmonics how is this possible?
Clearly, the energy separation between the [itex]1s^2[/itex] and [itex]1s2s[/itex] state of an ionized atom are going to be less that of helium...but as far as a quantitative estimate?? Does anyone have any hints or ideas?
IHateMayonnaise