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Reduced Mass

The document discusses using a reduced mass approach to more accurately model an electron rotating around the nucleus of an atom. It introduces the concept of reduced mass μ, which replaces m_e in equations by accounting for the masses of both the electron and nucleus. This allows equations developed assuming electron rotation around the nucleus to still hold true if m_e is replaced by μ, providing a more accurate representation of the two-body system using a reduced distance to the center of rotation.

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Caden Lee
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
183 views1 page

Reduced Mass

The document discusses using a reduced mass approach to more accurately model an electron rotating around the nucleus of an atom. It introduces the concept of reduced mass μ, which replaces m_e in equations by accounting for the masses of both the electron and nucleus. This allows equations developed assuming electron rotation around the nucleus to still hold true if m_e is replaced by μ, providing a more accurate representation of the two-body system using a reduced distance to the center of rotation.

Uploaded by

Caden Lee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reduced Mass (More intuitive approach)

Taking the CM as the origin (

):
(

Thus,
( )
The previous approach was to write (we use

instead because there are hidden rs in

.)

where
assuming that the electron was rotating about the nucleus. However, a
more accurate expression would be (using the diagram)

If we know how are and related, we can replace


analysis. We know that

with and preserve all our previous

so from eq (1)

Therefore, we can write

Thus, we can preserve all our analysis

if we replace all occurrences of with the reduced mass . Essentially, with a reduced
distance to the centre of rotation ( instead of ), we can simply correct it using a reduced
mass. Note here that in our previous analysis where
,
so our previous
results related to the spectrum of the Hydrogen atom are still very good. But now, we can
make it better.

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