Field lines of electrons in an atomic orbital

In summary: How does this work, and why is it more accurate than treating the orbitals as separate charge distributions?In summary, it is more accurate to treat the electron's orbitals as separate charge distributions and calculate the field lines just based on that. The electric field from the electron alone would drop to zero at the radial node of the orbital.
  • #36
I don't think there should be any polarization because of the spherical symmetry inherent in the problem. The time-averaged field should have no angular dependence.

I think in order to get a time-averaged field you may want to integrate away the angular components.
 
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  • #37
S-orbitals have spherically symmetric fields. The other orbitals do have polarizations, yes.
 
  • #38
Cool. Makes sense now I think. Thanks again :)
 

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