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A parameter in a compact description of intra-atomic electron repulsion within a configuration. $B$ and $C$ control relative d-shell multiplet energies; $B$ is not the octahedral splitting or a rotational constant.

Radiation transports energy away from a source through propagating fields or emitted particles. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays; alpha particles, beta particles and neutrons provide particle-radiation examples. The word alone does not specify an energy, a hazard, or a detection method.

An experiment must distinguish the incident field from its interaction with the detector. A photodetector measures a light-induced response, while an ionization chamber collects charge created in a gas. Neither instrument responds equally to every kind of radiation. Ionizing radiation is classified by its ability to remove bound electrons under the relevant interaction conditions, rather than simply by whether the source is radioactive.

radiation damage is a radiation-induced change in a specimen. In biological electron microscopy, accumulated exposure can alter chemical groups and remove high-resolution information, so recording more electrons has competing signal and damage effects.

The characteristic thickness over which a high-energy electron loses all but a fraction $1/e$ of its energy through bremsstrahlung. At fixed thickness $x$, smaller $X_0$ increases the radiative loss; the relevant dimensionless measure is $x/X_0$. Low-energy charged particles can instead be dominated by collisional stopping power.^[ref]

Equating radiation pressure to cold electron degeneracy pressure gives $T=[3P_e(\rho )/a_{\mathrm{rad}}{]}^{1/4}$. Because the two electron pressure limits scale as ${\rho }^{5/3}$ and ${\rho }^{4/3}$, this boundary has logarithmic slopes $5/12$ and $1/3$, respectively. Above it, photon pressure can dominate even when the net electrons remain degenerate; degeneracy of one component and dominance of the total pressure are different criteria. Thermal pairs modify the high-temperature pressure comparison.

For a nondegenerate fully ionized gas, equating $P_{\mathrm{gas}}=\rho k_{B}T/({\mu }_{\mathrm{mol}}{m}_u)$ with $P_{\gamma }=a_{\mathrm{rad}}{T}^4/3$ gives $T^3=3k_B\rho /(a_{\mathrm{rad}}{\mu }_{\mathrm{mol}}{m}_u)$. Radiation dominates at higher temperature for fixed density. A degenerate electron gas requires its degeneracy pressure instead of extrapolating this ideal-gas formula.

In a semiconductor, a conduction electron fills a vacant valence state and emits a photon. In a simple nondegenerate model the recombination rate is $Bnp$, while the equilibrium reverse generation rate is $B{n}_i^2$; their difference gives the displayed net pair-loss rate. This subtraction enforces detailed balance at thermal equilibrium. Photon momentum is small on the scale of a Brillouin zone, so a direct band gap permits a direct transition while an indirect band gap generally requires a phonon or another source of momentum.

A free electron can be captured by an ion while a photon carries away binding and kinetic energy. This radiative recombination process contributes free-bound radiation to plasma cooling and balances collisional ionization in a collisional-equilibrium plasma.

A radical anion has negative net electric charge and an unpaired electron.

A radical cation has positive net electric charge and an unpaired electron.

A radical has one or more unpaired electrons. In a simple atomic orbital or molecular orbital occupancy picture, an unpaired electron occupies a spatial orbital without an opposite-spin partner in that orbital. A dot such as ${\mathrm{H}}^{\bullet }$ marks this electronic property; it does not mean a missing electron or positive electric charge. Free radicals can be neutral or charged. Terminology also has a boundary: metal ions exhibiting paramagnetism are not normally called free radicals just because they have unpaired electrons.^[ref]

Compare three species containing the same single proton. The hydrogen atom ${\mathrm{H}}^{\bullet }$ has one electron in its $1s$ atomic orbital, and is a neutral radical. The hydrogen cation ${\mathrm{H}}^{+}$ has no electrons, so no unpaired electron. The hydrogen anion ${\mathrm{H}}^{-}$ has two electrons paired in its $1s$ atomic orbital. It is charged but is not a radical in its ground state. With $N_p$ protons, $N_e$ electrons, and positive elementary charge $e$, the independent electric charge count isThe electron pair and electric charge questions require different information. An odd $N_e$ ensures that not all electrons can be paired; an even $N_e$ alone does not ensure pairing, as the molecular orbital description of molecular oxygen illustrates.

The distinction matters whenever a chemical reaction mechanism uses dots and charge signs together. Homolysis gives one bonding electron to each fragment, while heterolysis assigns both to one fragment. A radical chain reaction can pass an unpaired electron from one species to another without generating net electric charge. Detection then exploits the unpaired electron's spin and magnetic moment, rather than merely measuring whether the sample carries an electric charge.

A radical ion is both a radical and an ion. Removing one electron from neutral benzene can produce ${{\mathrm{C}}_6{\mathrm{H}}_6}^{\bullet +}$, a radical cation; adding one can produce ${{\mathrm{C}}_6{\mathrm{H}}_6}^{\bullet -}$, a radical anion. These formulae specify net electric charge and an unpaired electron, without claiming that both reside on one chemical atom.^[ref]

A sequence in which electron transfer converts a radical intermediate into a cationic or anionic intermediate, enabling subsequent polar chemistry.

An experimental nuclear physicist who coauthored the Wu experiment testing parity conservation in beta decay. The collaboration combined low-temperature nuclear orientation with directional radiation counting. Cooling the cobalt-60 sample made it possible to compare emitted electrons with a known nuclear orientation rather than average over random spins.^[ref]

Ralph S. Sutherland coauthored a study of probability distributions of electron kinetic energy in H II regions and planetary nebulae. With David C. Nicholls and Michael A. Dopita, he investigated whether deviations from a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution could account for disagreements between different inferred temperatures and chemical abundances.

The authors explored a Kappa distribution with an enhanced high-energy population. The methodological point is that a temperature diagnostic depends on the assumed particle distribution; fitting different spectral lines can probe that assumption rather than merely repeat the same measurement.^[ref]

Randolf Pohl led a precision measurement of the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen, an exotic chemical atom in which a muon replaces the electron. The heavier orbiting particle is localized much closer to the proton, making its energy levels especially sensitive to the proton's finite charge distribution.

Measuring the transition and subtracting the other calculated contributions therefore constrains the proton's charge radius. The 2010 result disagreed with then-standard determinations, turning nuclear-size extraction into a consistency test across different experimental and theoretical methods.^[ref]

R. de L. Kronig, with W. G. Penney, constructed the Kronig-Penney model for electron motion through a periodic crystal potential. The model turns the general periodicity argument behind Bloch's theorem into an explicit calculation of allowed energies.^[ref]

A periodic potential can exclude intervals of energy even when an electron moves freely inside each simplified region. This links wave matching to a solid's band gaps, while retaining an approximation to the many-electron crystal problem.

In an optically thin plasma, radiative recombination removes the kinetic energy of captured electrons. A radiative recombination photon can also carry the binding energy released when a free electron becomes bound; that part is stored ionization energy, rather than newly removed thermal energy. The kinetic contribution per event is the recombination-weighted electron energy, which need not be $3k_{B}T/2$.

Equality with mean photoelectron heating requires two balances. If photoionization is the only ionization and heating process, and radiative recombination the only recombination and cooling process, photoionization equilibrium equates their event rates. Separately imposing thermal equilibrium then equates the mean heating energy per ionization to the mean kinetic cooling energy per recombination. Photoionization equilibrium alone does not do this: at the same balanced event rate, unequal energies can still heat or cool the gas. Additional atomic line cooling, collisional ionization or trapping of emitted photons changes the energy accounting.

A recombination line is a spectral line produced after a free electron is captured, often through a subsequent radiative cascade among bound levels. Its emissivity is computed with an effective recombination coefficient, distinct from the free-bound recombination continuum.

Consider a spin-degenerate two-dimensional free electron model with rectangular periods $a>b$ and two electrons per unit cell. Write $K=\pi /a$, $L=\pi /b$, and $k_F^2=4\pi /(ab)$. If $K<k_F<L$, the circular Fermi contour crosses only the vertical boundaries of the first Brillouin zone. Folding translates its protruding caps back by a reciprocal lattice vector $(2K,0)$. A weak periodic potential mixes the intersecting plane waves, reconnecting the contours into two open first-band sheets and a closed second-band pocket. The pocket is centred on a zone boundary: its halves on opposite sides of a reduced-zone plot are identified periodically and belong to one closed sheet.