D wave 2026-10-20
A partial wave with orbital angular momentum . Its orbital parity is positive. Coupling it to a spin-one pair can include total , allowing a D wave component in the deuteron.
In a pure stretched state both spins point along the total angular momentum, with no orbital contribution. The nuclear magnetic moment would be
The measured differs. More decisively, a pure S wave spatial state is isotropic and has zero electric quadrupole moment. Its nonzero value requires a nonspherical component of the quantum charge distribution.
Positive parity allows even ; coupling to permits and . The state contains a deuteron D-state admixture:
with radial wavefunctions implicit. A nuclear tensor force couples the orbital components. The quadrupole moment involves their interference as well as a D-state contribution, making it sensitive to a small admixture. This is a quantum angular correlation, not two particles permanently fixed in space.
In the nonrelativistic one-body magnetic-moment approximation,
The D-state coupling has and at ; the proton supplies approximately half the relative orbital magnetic moment. Thus
The robust conclusion is a predominantly S wave state with a small tensor-induced D wave component. The 4% estimate is model dependent: exchange currents and other corrections also affect the magnetic moment, and a wavefunction component probability is not itself a uniquely measured observable.[ref]