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For the ideal Wannier-Mott exciton in energy bands whose edges occur at the same crystal momentum, the pair excitation energy, measured from the unexcited crystal, isHere $\hslash \mathbf{K}$ is the pair's total crystal momentum; the last term is center of mass kinetic energy. For a permitted photon absorption transition with negligible recoil energy, $\hslash \omega \simeq E_g-E_{B,n}$. An electric-dipole selection rule and a nonzero transition matrix element are still needed: a bound state need not produce an observable spectral line. If the relevant energy band edges have different values of crystal momentum, a phonon can also be needed to conserve crystal momentum; subtracting a binding scale from a band gap alone does not specify the optical threshold.

For example, the lowest internal bound state in this hypothetical model costs $1.489115\mathrm{eV}$ to create optically, yet needs only $0.010885\mathrm{eV}$ more to dissociate. The large creation energy and the small exciton binding energy answer different physical questions. An electron-hole recombination event can instead release excitation energy by photon emission or to other degrees of freedom; an emitted photon need not reproduce the original absorption energy if relaxation intervened.