Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-atomic-and-laser-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2022/1/a/solution

In LS coupling, first add the individual orbital angular momenta and spins separately, then add their totals:
The Coulomb interaction between electrons must separate different atomic terms more strongly than the spin-orbit interaction mixes them. Then are useful quantum numbers, with . This approximation is usually better for lighter chemical atoms and well-separated atomic terms; strong configuration interaction or strong spin-orbit coupling can spoil it. The term symbol is .
The general electric-dipole selection rules, for isolated chemical atoms with definite parity and total electronic angular momentum, are a change of parity, excluding , and , with the accessible magnetic sublevels determined by the light's polarization. In pure LS coupling, the additional selection rules are and , excluding . In a one-electron description the electric dipole operator also requires for the active electron. These latter statements can fail as exact labels when atomic terms mix; the general parity and total-angular momentum restrictions still apply. Unresolved hyperfine structure is neglected here.
For strontium, the closed core contributes . The Pauli exclusion principle makes the two equivalent electrons a singlet state. Different radial orbitals permit both a singlet state and a triplet state. Thus the complete lists of atomic fine-structure levels are
The electron configuration has odd parity; the other two electron configurations have even parity.

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