Adiabatic Bohr-Sommerfeld Calculations
for the Hydrongen Stark Effect

David Wayne Byrd
December 2004



science theses

Abstract

A general prescription is presented for the classical calculation of quantized energy levels of a class of parametric quantum systems. Starting with the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization conditions of an exactly solvable system, the calculation evolves the classical equations of motion while adiabatically introducing a nonzero parameter. This method is shown to yield accurate quantum results in the case of the Hydrogen atom in an electric field.


last update 7/15/05