DescriptionHydrogen eigenstate n5 l2 m1.png | English: Calculated 5d 1 orbital of an electron's eigenstate in the Coulomb-field of a hydrogen nucleus. An eigenstate is a state which keeps it's shape except for a complex phase when the Hamilton operator is applied, thus being invariant in time while obeying the Schrödinger equation. The wavefunction is: The state is an eigenstate of H, L² and Lz, which constitute a complete set of commuting observables. The quantum numbers mean that the following quantities have a sharp certain value: - n = 5: Energy:
- l = 2: Angular momentum:
- m = 1: Angular momentum in z-direction:
Since l=2, this is called a d-orbital. The orbital is aligned around the z-axis, but remains an eigenfunction of H and L² if rotated to any direction.
The depicted rigid body is where the probability density exceeds a certain value. The color shows the complex phase of the wavefunction, where blue means real positive, red means imaginary positive, yellow means real negative and green means imaginary negative. The image is raytraced using modified Phong lighting. The fine structure is neglected. |