Planck constant | |
---|---|
Common symbols | |
SI unit | joule per hertz (joule second) |
Other units | electronvolt per hertz (electronvolt second) |
In SI base units | kg⋅m 2⋅s −1 |
Dimension | |
Value | 6.62607015×10−34 J⋅Hz−1 4.135667696...×10−15 eV⋅Hz−1 |
Reduced Planck constant | |
---|---|
Common symbols | |
SI unit | joule-second |
Other units | electronvolt-second |
In SI base units | kg⋅m 2⋅s −1 |
Derivations from other quantities | |
Dimension | |
Value | 1.054571817...×10−34 J⋅s 6.582119569...×10−16 eV⋅s |
The Planck constant, or Planck's constant, denoted by , [1] is a fundamental physical constant [1] of foundational importance in quantum mechanics: a photon's energy is equal to its frequency multiplied by the Planck constant, and the wavelength of a matter wave equals the Planck constant divided by the associated particle momentum. The closely related reduced Planck constant, equal to and denoted is commonly used in quantum physics equations.
The constant was postulated by Max Planck in 1900 as a proportionality constant needed to explain experimental black-body radiation. [2] Planck later referred to the constant as the "quantum of action". [3] In 1905, Albert Einstein associated the "quantum" or minimal element of the energy to the electromagnetic wave itself. Max Planck received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta".
In metrology, the Planck constant is used, together with other constants, to define the kilogram, the SI unit of mass. [4] The SI units are defined in such a way that, when the Planck constant is expressed in SI units, it has the exact value = 6.62607015×10−34 J⋅Hz−1. [5] [6]
Planck's constant was formulated as part of Max Planck's successful effort to produce a mathematical expression that accurately predicted the observed spectral distribution of thermal radiation from a closed furnace (black-body radiation). [7] This mathematical expression is now known as Planck's law.
In the last years of the 19th century, Max Planck was investigating the problem of black-body radiation first posed by Kirchhoff some 40 years earlier. Every physical body spontaneously and continuously emits electromagnetic radiation. There was no expression or explanation for the overall shape of the observed emission spectrum. At the time, Wien's law fit the data for short wavelengths and high temperatures, but failed for long wavelengths. [7] : 141 Also around this time, but unknown to Planck, Lord Rayleigh had derived theoretically a formula, now known as the Rayleigh–Jeans law, that could reasonably predict long wavelengths but failed dramatically at short wavelengths.
Approaching this problem, Planck hypothesized that the equations of motion for light describe a set of harmonic oscillators, one for each possible frequency. He examined how the entropy of the oscillators varied with the temperature of the body, trying to match Wien's law, and was able to derive an approximate mathematical function for the black-body spectrum, [2] which gave a simple empirical formula for long wavelengths.
Planck tried to find a mathematical expression that could reproduce Wien's law (for short wavelengths) and the empirical formula (for long wavelengths). This expression included a constant, , which is thought to be for Hilfsgröße (auxiliary quantity), [8] and subsequently became known as the Planck constant. The expression formulated by Planck showed that the spectral radiance per unit frequency of a body for frequency ν at absolute temperature T is given by
where is the Boltzmann constant, is the Planck constant, and is the speed of light in the medium, whether material or vacuum. [9] [10] [11]
Planck soon realized that his solution was not unique. There were several different solutions, each of which gave a different value for the entropy of the oscillators. [2] To save his theory, Planck resorted to using the then-controversial theory of statistical mechanics, [2] which he described as "an act of desperation". [12] One of his new boundary conditions was
to interpret UN ['the vibrational energy of N oscillators'] not as a continuous, infinitely divisible quantity, but as a discrete quantity composed of an integral number of finite equal parts. Let us call each such part the energy element ε;
— Planck, "On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum" [2]
With this new condition, Planck had imposed the quantization of the energy of the oscillators, in his own words, "a purely formal assumption ... actually I did not think much about it", [13] but one that would revolutionize physics. Applying this new approach to Wien's displacement law showed that the "energy element" must be proportional to the frequency of the oscillator, the first version of what is now sometimes termed the "Planck–Einstein relation":
Planck was able to calculate the value of from experimental data on black-body radiation: his result, 6.55×10−34 J⋅s, is within 1.2% of the currently defined value. [2] He also made the first determination of the Boltzmann constant from the same data and theory. [14]
The black-body problem was revisited in 1905, when Lord Rayleigh and James Jeans (together) and Albert Einstein independently proved that classical electromagnetism could never account for the observed spectrum. These proofs are commonly known as the "ultraviolet catastrophe", a name coined by Paul Ehrenfest in 1911. They contributed greatly (along with Einstein's work on the photoelectric effect) in convincing physicists that Planck's postulate of quantized energy levels was more than a mere mathematical formalism. The first Solvay Conference in 1911 was devoted to "the theory of radiation and quanta". [15]
The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons (called "photoelectrons") from a surface when light is shone on it. It was first observed by Alexandre Edmond Becquerel in 1839, although credit is usually reserved for Heinrich Hertz, [16] who published the first thorough investigation in 1887. Another particularly thorough investigation was published by Philipp Lenard (Lénárd Fülöp) in 1902. [17] Einstein's 1905 paper [18] discussing the effect in terms of light quanta would earn him the Nobel Prize in 1921, [16] after his predictions had been confirmed by the experimental work of Robert Andrews Millikan. [19] The Nobel committee awarded the prize for his work on the photo-electric effect, rather than relativity, both because of a bias against purely theoretical physics not grounded in discovery or experiment, and dissent amongst its members as to the actual proof that relativity was real. [20] [21]
Before Einstein's paper, electromagnetic radiation such as visible light was considered to behave as a wave: hence the use of the terms "frequency" and "wavelength" to characterize different types of radiation. The energy transferred by a wave in a given time is called its intensity. The light from a theatre spotlight is more intense than the light from a domestic lightbulb; that is to say that the spotlight gives out more energy per unit time and per unit space (and hence consumes more electricity) than the ordinary bulb, even though the color of the light might be very similar. Other waves, such as sound or the waves crashing against a seafront, also have their intensity. However, the energy account of the photoelectric effect did not seem to agree with the wave description of light.
The "photoelectrons" emitted as a result of the photoelectric effect have a certain kinetic energy, which can be measured. This kinetic energy (for each photoelectron) is independent of the intensity of the light, [17] but depends linearly on the frequency; [19] and if the frequency is too low (corresponding to a photon energy that is less than the work function of the material), no photoelectrons are emitted at all, unless a plurality of photons, whose energetic sum is greater than the energy of the photoelectrons, acts virtually simultaneously (multiphoton effect). [22] [23] Assuming the frequency is high enough to cause the photoelectric effect, a rise in intensity of the light source causes more photoelectrons to be emitted with the same kinetic energy, rather than the same number of photoelectrons to be emitted with higher kinetic energy. [17]
Einstein's explanation for these observations was that light itself is quantized; that the energy of light is not transferred continuously as in a classical wave, but only in small "packets" or quanta. The size of these "packets" of energy, which would later be named photons, was to be the same as Planck's "energy element", giving the modern version of the Planck–Einstein relation:
Einstein's postulate was later proven experimentally: the constant of proportionality between the frequency of incident light and the kinetic energy of photoelectrons was shown to be equal to the Planck constant . [19]
In 1912 John William Nicholson developed [24] an atomic model and found the angular momentum of the electrons in the model were related by h/2π. [25] [26] Nicholson's nuclear quantum atomic model influenced the development of Niels Bohr 's atomic model [27] [28] [26] and Bohr quoted him in his 1913 paper of the Bohr model of the atom. [29] Bohr's model went beyond Planck's abstract harmonic oscillator concept: an electron in a Bohr atom could only have certain defined energies , defined by
where is the speed of light in vacuum, is an experimentally determined constant (the Rydberg constant) and . This approach also allowed Bohr to account for the Rydberg formula, an empirical description of the atomic spectrum of hydrogen, and to account for the value of the Rydberg constant in terms of other fundamental constants. In discussing angular momentum of the electrons in his model Bohr introduced the quantity , now known as the reduced Planck constant as the quantum of angular momentum. [29]
The Planck constant also occurs in statements of Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Given numerous particles prepared in the same state, the uncertainty in their position, , and the uncertainty in their momentum, , obey
where the uncertainty is given as the standard deviation of the measured value from its expected value. There are several other such pairs of physically measurable conjugate variables which obey a similar rule. One example is time vs. energy. The inverse relationship between the uncertainty of the two conjugate variables forces a tradeoff in quantum experiments, as measuring one quantity more precisely results in the other quantity becoming imprecise.
In addition to some assumptions underlying the interpretation of certain values in the quantum mechanical formulation, one of the fundamental cornerstones to the entire theory lies in the commutator relationship between the position operator and the momentum operator :
where is the Kronecker delta.
The Planck relation connects the particular photon energy E with its associated wave frequency f:
This energy is extremely small in terms of ordinarily perceived everyday objects.
Since the frequency f, wavelength λ, and speed of light c are related by , the relation can also be expressed as
In 1923, Louis de Broglie generalized the Planck–Einstein relation by postulating that the Planck constant represents the proportionality between the momentum and the quantum wavelength of not just the photon, but the quantum wavelength of any particle. This was confirmed by experiments soon afterward. This holds throughout the quantum theory, including electrodynamics. The de Broglie wavelength λ of the particle is given by
where p denotes the linear momentum of a particle, such as a photon, or any other elementary particle.
The energy of a photon with angular frequency ω = 2πf is given by
while its linear momentum relates to
where k is an angular wavenumber.
These two relations are the temporal and spatial parts of the special relativistic expression using 4-vectors.
Classical statistical mechanics requires the existence of h (but does not define its value). [30] Eventually, following upon Planck's discovery, it was speculated that physical action could not take on an arbitrary value, but instead was restricted to integer multiples of a very small quantity, the "[elementary] quantum of action", now called the Planck constant. [31] This was a significant conceptual part of the so-called "old quantum theory" developed by physicists including Bohr, Sommerfeld, and Ishiwara, in which particle trajectories exist but are hidden, but quantum laws constrain them based on their action. This view has been replaced by fully modern quantum theory, in which definite trajectories of motion do not even exist; rather, the particle is represented by a wavefunction spread out in space and in time. [32] : 373 Related to this is the concept of energy quantization which existed in old quantum theory and also exists in altered form in modern quantum physics. Classical physics cannot explain quantization of energy.
The Planck constant has the same dimensions as action and as angular momentum. In SI units, the Planck constant is expressed with the unit joule per hertz (J⋅Hz−1) or joule-second (J⋅s).
The above values have been adopted as fixed in the 2019 revision of the SI.
Since 2019, the numerical value of the Planck constant has been fixed, with a finite decimal representation. This fixed value is used to define the SI unit of mass, the kilogram: "the kilogram [...] is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of h to be 6.62607015×10−34 when expressed in the unit J⋅s, which is equal to kg⋅m2⋅s−1, where the metre and the second are defined in terms of speed of light c and duration of hyperfine transition of the ground state of an unperturbed caesium-133 atom ΔνCs." [35] Technologies of mass metrology such as the Kibble balance measure refine the value of kilogram applying fixed value of the Planck constant.
The Planck constant is one of the smallest constants used in physics. This reflects the fact that on a scale adapted to humans, where energies are typical of the order of kilojoules and times are typical of the order of seconds or minutes, the Planck constant is very small. When the product of energy and time for a physical event approaches the Planck constant, quantum effects dominate. [36]
Equivalently, the order of the Planck constant reflects the fact that everyday objects and systems are made of a large number of microscopic particles. For example, in green light (with a wavelength of 555 nanometres or a frequency of 540 THz) each photon has an energy E = hf = 3.58×10−19 J. That is a very small amount of energy in terms of everyday experience, but everyday experience is not concerned with individual photons any more than with individual atoms or molecules. An amount of light more typical in everyday experience (though much larger than the smallest amount perceivable by the human eye) is the energy of one mole of photons; its energy can be computed by multiplying the photon energy by the Avogadro constant, NA = 6.02214076×1023 mol−1, [37] with the result of 216 kJ, about the food energy in three apples.[ citation needed ]
Many equations in quantum physics are customarily written using the reduced Planck constant, [38] : 104 equal to and denoted (pronounced h-bar [39] : 336 ). [40]
The fundamental equations look simpler when written using as opposed to , and it is usually rather than that gives the most reliable results when used in order-of-magnitude estimates. For example, using dimensional analysis to estimate the ionization energy of a hydrogen atom, the relevant parameters that determine the ionization energy are the mass of the electron , the electron charge , and either the Planck constant or the reduced Planck constant :
Since both constants have the same dimensions, they will enter the dimensional analysis in the same way, but with the estimate is within a factor of two, while with the error is closer to . [41] : 8–9
The reduced Planck constant is known by many other names: reduced Planck's constant [42] : 5 [43] : 788 ), the rationalized Planck constant [44] : 726 [45] : 10 [46] : - (or rationalized Planck's constant [47] : 334 [48] : ix , [49] : 112 the Dirac constant [50] : 275 [44] : 726 [51] : xv (or Dirac's constant [52] : 148 [53] : 604 [54] : 313 ), the Dirac [55] [56] : xviii (or Dirac's [57] : 17 ), the Dirac [58] : 187 (or Dirac's [59] : 273 [60] : 14 ), and h-bar. [61] : 558 [62] : 561 It is also common to refer to this as "Planck's constant" [63] : 55 [a] while retaining the relationship .
By far the most common symbol for the reduced Planck constant is . However, there are some sources that denote it by instead, in which case they usually refer to it as the "Dirac " [89] : 43 [90] (or "Dirac's " [91] : 21 ).
The combination appeared in Niels Bohr's 1913 paper, [92] : 15 where it was denoted by . [26] : 169 [b] For the next 15 years, the combination continued to appear in the literature, but normally without a separate symbol. [93] : 180 [c] Then, in 1926, in their seminal papers, Schrödinger and Dirac again introduced special symbols for it: in the case of Schrödinger, [105] and in the case of Dirac. [106] Dirac continued to use in this way until 1930, [107] : 291 when he introduced the symbol in his book The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. [107] : 291 [108]
In atomic physics, the Bohr model or Rutherford–Bohr model was the first successful model of the atom. Developed from 1911 to 1918 by Niels Bohr and building on Ernest Rutherford's nuclear model, it supplanted the plum pudding model of J J Thomson only to be replaced by the quantum atomic model in the 1920s. It consists of a small, dense nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons. It is analogous to the structure of the Solar System, but with attraction provided by electrostatic force rather than gravity, and with the electron energies quantized.
A photon is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless particles that can move no faster than the speed of light measured in vacuum. The photon belongs to the class of boson particles.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
In physics, a correspondence principle is any one of several premises or assertions about the relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. The physicist Niels Bohr coined the term in 1920 during the early development of quantum theory; he used it to explain how quantized classical orbitals connect to quantum radiation. Modern sources often use the term for the idea that the behavior of systems described by quantum theory reproduces classical physics in the limit of large quantum numbers: for large orbits and for large energies, quantum calculations must agree with classical calculations. A "generalized" correspondence principle refers to the requirement for a broad set of connections between any old and new theory.
The Schrödinger equation is a partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a non-relativistic quantum-mechanical system. Its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of quantum mechanics. It is named after Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist, who postulated the equation in 1925 and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.
Zero-point energy (ZPE) is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system may have. Unlike in classical mechanics, quantum systems constantly fluctuate in their lowest energy state as described by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Therefore, even at absolute zero, atoms and molecules retain some vibrational motion. Apart from atoms and molecules, the empty space of the vacuum also has these properties. According to quantum field theory, the universe can be thought of not as isolated particles but continuous fluctuating fields: matter fields, whose quanta are fermions, and force fields, whose quanta are bosons. All these fields have zero-point energy. These fluctuating zero-point fields lead to a kind of reintroduction of an aether in physics since some systems can detect the existence of this energy. However, this aether cannot be thought of as a physical medium if it is to be Lorentz invariant such that there is no contradiction with Einstein's theory of special relativity.
In quantum physics, a wave function is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The most common symbols for a wave function are the Greek letters ψ and Ψ. Wave functions are complex-valued. For example, a wave function might assign a complex number to each point in a region of space. The Born rule provides the means to turn these complex probability amplitudes into actual probabilities. In one common form, it says that the squared modulus of a wave function that depends upon position is the probability density of measuring a particle as being at a given place. The integral of a wavefunction's squared modulus over all the system's degrees of freedom must be equal to 1, a condition called normalization. Since the wave function is complex-valued, only its relative phase and relative magnitude can be measured; its value does not, in isolation, tell anything about the magnitudes or directions of measurable observables. One has to apply quantum operators, whose eigenvalues correspond to sets of possible results of measurements, to the wave function ψ and calculate the statistical distributions for measurable quantities.
In the physical sciences, the wavenumber, also known as repetency, is the spatial frequency of a wave, measured in cycles per unit distance or radians per unit distance. It is analogous to temporal frequency, which is defined as the number of wave cycles per unit time or radians per unit time.
In physics, Planck's law describes the spectral density of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a given temperature T, when there is no net flow of matter or energy between the body and its environment.
The ultraviolet catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, was the prediction of late 19th century and early 20th century classical physics that an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium would emit an unbounded quantity of energy as wavelength decreased into the ultraviolet range. The term "ultraviolet catastrophe" was first used in 1911 by Paul Ehrenfest, but the concept originated with the 1900 statistical derivation of the Rayleigh–Jeans law.
Matter waves are a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics, being half of wave–particle duality. At all scales where measurements have been practical, matter exhibits wave-like behavior. For example, a beam of electrons can be diffracted just like a beam of light or a water wave.
In atomic physics, the Rydberg formula calculates the wavelengths of a spectral line in many chemical elements. The formula was primarily presented as a generalization of the Balmer series for all atomic electron transitions of hydrogen. It was first empirically stated in 1888 by the Swedish physicist Johannes Rydberg, then theoretically by Niels Bohr in 1913, who used a primitive form of quantum mechanics. The formula directly generalizes the equations used to calculate the wavelengths of the hydrogen spectral series.
The old quantum theory is a collection of results from the years 1900–1925 which predate modern quantum mechanics. The theory was never complete or self-consistent, but was instead a set of heuristic corrections to classical mechanics. The theory has come to be understood as the semi-classical approximation to modern quantum mechanics. The main and final accomplishments of the old quantum theory were the determination of the modern form of the periodic table by Edmund Stoner and the Pauli exclusion principle, both of which were premised on Arnold Sommerfeld's enhancements to the Bohr model of the atom.
The Compton wavelength is a quantum mechanical property of a particle, defined as the wavelength of a photon whose energy is the same as the rest energy of that particle. It was introduced by Arthur Compton in 1923 in his explanation of the scattering of photons by electrons.
In atomic, molecular, and optical physics, the Einstein coefficients are quantities describing the probability of absorption or emission of a photon by an atom or molecule. The Einstein A coefficients are related to the rate of spontaneous emission of light, and the Einstein B coefficients are related to the absorption and stimulated emission of light. Throughout this article, "light" refers to any electromagnetic radiation, not necessarily in the visible spectrum.
In quantum mechanics, the momentum operator is the operator associated with the linear momentum. The momentum operator is, in the position representation, an example of a differential operator. For the case of one particle in one spatial dimension, the definition is: where ħ is the reduced Planck constant, i the imaginary unit, x is the spatial coordinate, and a partial derivative is used instead of a total derivative since the wave function is also a function of time. The "hat" indicates an operator. The "application" of the operator on a differentiable wave function is as follows:
First quantization is a procedure for converting equations of classical particle equations into quantum wave equations. The companion concept of second quantization converts classical field equations in to quantum field equations.
The history of quantum mechanics is a fundamental part of the history of modern physics. The major chapters of this history begin with the emergence of quantum ideas to explain individual phenomena—blackbody radiation, the photoelectric effect, solar emission spectra—an era called the Old or Older quantum theories. Building on the technology developed in classical mechanics, the invention of wave mechanics by Erwin Schrödinger and expansion by many others triggers the "modern" era beginning around 1925. Paul Dirac's relativistic quantum theory work lead him to explore quantum theories of radiation, culminating in quantum electrodynamics, the first quantum field theory. The history of quantum mechanics continues in the history of quantum field theory. The history of quantum chemistry, theoretical basis of chemical structure, reactivity, and bonding, interlaces with the events discussed in this article.
The Planck relation is a fundamental equation in quantum mechanics which states that the energy E of a photon, known as photon energy, is proportional to its frequency ν: The constant of proportionality, h, is known as the Planck constant. Several equivalent forms of the relation exist, including in terms of angular frequency ω: where . Written using the symbol f for frequency, the relation is
In 1923, American physicist William Duane presented a discrete momentum-exchange model of the reflection of X-ray photons by a crystal lattice. Duane showed that such a model gives the same scattering angles as the ones calculated via a wave diffraction model, see Bragg's Law.
The question is first: How can one assign a discrete succession of energy values Hσ to a system specified in the sense of classical mechanics (the energy function is a given function of the coordinates qr and the corresponding momenta pr)? The Planck constant h relates the frequency Hσ/h to the energy values Hσ. It is therefore sufficient to give to the system a succession of discrete frequency values.