Photons from Electons?

Question

When you thermally excite an electron to a higher energy level, it quicky comes back to its ground state by realeasing its energy in the form of a photon(s).

We all, I assume, accept this fact. But does it make sense? How does the electron do that? I thought that the electron was an indivisible particle without any volume. Then how can it emit a photon?

Answer 1

You are trying to think way too much in a concrete manner about the quantum world. The greatest Physicist of the 2nd half of the 20th century, Richard Feynman, once said, "If you think you understand quantum physics, then you don't understand quantum physics." I agree with this, and the fact is, no one understands quantum physics, even those who say they do. However, to answer your question, you need to realize that the quantum world is a seething mass of innumerable particles, with multidudes of virtual particles popping in and out of existance at every microsecond and at every microlocation. When an electron drops to a lower energy level, mother nature says that there are two choices for it in the real world, since this act has inceased the total energy of the seething mass by a smidgeon, and this condition can only be allowed for maybe a fraction of a femtosecond, until SOMETHING must be done to "right the energy balance of the universe", one choice being for the electron to bounce right back up to the original energy level, and nothing ventured, nothing gained, so to speek, or the other real option being for the electron to strike a deal with a photon, saying, "As an electron, I really like being here in this lower energy state, so Mr photon, could you please stop being virtual and become real and radiate off someplace so that I can stay in my comfortable lower energy position, while at the same time not aggravating the energy balance of the universe." So they strike a deal and everyone is happy. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

As Feynman would have explained it to his father.... The electron doesn't have a sack of photons, nor does the photon exist in the electron before it gets emitted. It's something like the way the words you say aren't "inside" you before you say them. You don't have a sack of words inside you, they get made as you say them.

Answer 3

when it decays back to the next lowest orbital, the difference in quantum energy is released by photoelectric effect, a weak photon (x-ray)