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On the Theory of Excitation by Collision with Heavy Particles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

N. F. Mott
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College

Extract

1. It has been shown, in a well-known paper by Born and Oppenheimer, that in evaluating the energy levels of a molecule, the nuclei may be treated as fixed, or slowly vibrating, centres of force. If M be the average mass of the nuclei, and m the mass of an electron, the error involved in doing this is of order of magnitude (m/M)½. The possibility therefore of treating the nuclei as fixed depends on their great mass, compared with that of the electron.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1931

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References

* Ann. der Phys. Vol. 84, p. 457 (1927)Google Scholar. A simpler method is given by Condon, and Morse, , Quantum Mechanics, p. 153.Google Scholar

Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. vol. 23, p. 732 (1927).Google Scholar

Ann. der Phys. vol. 5, p. 325 (1930)Google Scholar.

§ K. Akad. van Wet. te Amsterdam, vol. 33, p. 9 (1930).Google Scholar

Proc. Roy. Soc. A, Vol. 128, p. 330 (1930).Google Scholar

* Bethe, loc. cit.

Zeits. f. Physik, vol. 44, p. 445 (1927).Google Scholar

Zeits. f. Physik, Vol. 45, p. 311 (1927). See also Condon, Reviews of Modern Physics, vol. 3, p. 43 (1931).Google Scholar

§ Loc. cit.