Anomalous Zeeman effect 2026-10-18
The anomalous Zeeman effect is Zeeman splitting whose pattern is not the simple orbital triplet. Spin and spin-orbit interaction make the upper and lower Landé g-factors differ. The same weak-field formula still applies when its assumptions hold: “anomalous” does not mean nonlinear in the magnetic field.
For example, take an electronic transition with and , neglecting hyperfine structure. With , the formula above gives and . The two allowed transitions have dimensionless shifts , while the transitions give . Thus there are four frequencies, even though each level contains only two magnetic quantum numbers. This is an independent worked deduction; it should not be substituted for the unresolved widths in the 1896 experiment.
Electron spin g-factor 2026-10-18
The dimensionless coefficient in the spin part of the electron magnetic moment. It is distinct from a gyromagnetic ratio, which has units: in the angular convention, . It is also distinct from the Landé g-factor of a combined atomic angular momentum and from a nuclear or hyperfine g-factor.
For spin one-half, the largest magnitude of a spin-component magnetic dipole moment is , not . Thus the ideal value gives one Bohr magneton. This follows directly from the spin angular momentum projections .
LS coupling 2026-10-18
An atomic addition of angular momentum scheme in which the individual orbital angular momentum vectors first combine into and the individual spins into , then these combine into total angular momentum . When spin-orbit coupling is weak compared with the interactions between Electrons described by electrostatics, and remain useful approximate quantum numbers. The Landé g-factor describes the resulting weak-field magnetic splitting.
The Zeeman effect comes from . For an Electron, the orbital and spin magnetic moments are approximately and , respectively. This explains both the sign and the relative factor two in the term linear in . The second term is the spin-orbit interaction: the Electron's motion through the atomic electric field produces a magnetic interaction in its rest frame. The relativistic correction, including Thomas precession, and the radial expectation value are incorporated into . This effective Hamiltonian retains the linear Zeeman splitting and spin-orbit coupling, while omitting diamagnetic and hyperfine structure corrections.
Define the angular momentum ladder operators by and similarly for . Direct expansion gives
so adding gives the required scalar product. The off-diagonal terms change and in opposite directions. Consequently commutes with , and remains a good quantum number at every magnetic field.
In the given product eigenbasis, the diagonal matrix elements are
For and , the only off-diagonal couplings are between and , and between and . Each relevant orbital ladder factor is and each spin ladder factor is . Multiplying by gives . Therefore
All other off-diagonal entries vanish either by the ladder endpoints or by conservation of . This derives every entry of the displayed matrix.
The stretched states have no mixing and yield
The block is , while the block is . Taking the trace and determinant of each block gives the remaining four energy eigenvalues:
The subscripts indicate and the superscripts indicate the upper or lower root. These formulas are the Zeeman spectrum for orbital angular momentum one and remain valid for either sign of .
For the usual ordering , including sodium, the zero-field states follow from
The quartet lies at and the doublet at , separated by . In a weak magnetic field, the Landé g-factors give
These label the curves near . In a strong magnetic field, the Paschen-Back effect makes the appropriate approximate labels:
for the mixed states, with the stretched-state formulas already exact. The branch connections for are
Within a fixed , the nonzero coupling prevents a crossing; this is an avoided crossing. Curves with different may cross because the Hamiltonian does not couple them.
For the sodium estimate, the zero-field frequency separation fixes
The lower doublet has shifts . The Sodium D-line Zeeman pattern gives photon-frequency shifts times for D and for D. Thus the highest-frequency D component and lowest-frequency D component approach each other by . Extrapolating the weak-field Zeeman splitting gives
so the crossover occurs at a field of order , where and the weak-field approximation is becoming marginal.
The exact eigenvalues refine the estimate within this Hamiltonian. The relevant photon energies, with a common zero-field reference omitted, are and . The corresponding electric dipole transitions have and , respectively. Equating them gives
Its positive solution is , hence
in the retained model. The crossing is between optical transition frequencies; the participating upper states themselves need not be degenerate.
Neglect hyperfine structure and use the electronic weak-field Zeeman splitting regime, where is small compared with the spin-orbit interaction splitting. The sodium levels are , and . The Landé g-factor formula gives
For example, inserting gives . Each sublevel with magnetic quantum number shifts by . Thus the lower level has shifts , the upper level has shifts , and the upper level has shifts and .
The electric-dipole selection rule allows except , and . Both fine structure branches are allowed. The emitted photon energy is
All the allowed components of the sodium D-line Zeeman pattern are listed below; the last column is the photon shift in units of :
These are four components of D1 and six of D2. Their strengths need not be equal; the table and arrows specify allowed transitions, not intensities.
Figure 1.
All ten electronic dipole transitions of the weak-field sodium D doublet
. Details.
The level lies above , so D2 has the larger zero-field photon energy. [ref] In the stated weak-field regime its most positive shift is . Since , the shortest wavelength is therefore produced by
The tempting pair has a larger difference of level shifts but is forbidden because .
Use the electronic weak-field Zeeman splitting model, neglecting hyperfine structure. The Landé g-factor is for and for . The shift of an absorption frequency is therefore
Here the magnetic field is weak relative to spin-orbit coupling, so remains a useful quantum number, but the spectral line widths are small enough to resolve its magnetic substates.
For linear polarization parallel to , the optical electric field has only the field-axis component. The electric-dipole selection rule is . Its two allowed transitions are , giving
For propagation perpendicular to with linear polarization also perpendicular to , the optical electric field is an equal-amplitude combination of the two field-axis circular components. It drives transitions with . These connect and , giving
Thus each orientation selects two lines, with twice the separation in the perpendicular-polarization case. Neither pair has an unshifted central component. This is polarization-selective Zeeman splitting of an alkali D1 line, an anomalous Zeeman effect rather than a normal orbital triplet.
Figure 1.
Polarization selects two different sodium D1 Zeeman doublets
. Original electronic-level prediction in units . Equal heights within each pair illustrate an initially unpolarized lower level and a weak probe; optical pumping can alter populations and hence strengths. Hyperfine structure is omitted, as in the stated electronic -level model. Details.
Use the uncoupled angular momentum eigenstates and , with . For the Hamiltonian operator actually written in the paper, these are the energy eigenstates, with
The initial states are not all energy eigenstates of this operator. To find their energy populations, first perform the Clebsch-Gordan decomposition. The extremal states are and . Applying the total angular momentum lowering operator to the first gives
Similarly,
The initial preparation is an equal incoherent mixture of the four coupled states. Each extremal state contributes population to its one energy eigenvalue, while each nonextremal state contributes and of its own population to the two displayed components. The resulting Zeeman splitting is therefore
for nonzero . The relative populations are in this order; the two zero-energy states each have population . These Zeeman populations from an unpolarized angular-momentum multiplet remain constant under subsequent evolution by the stated static Hamiltonian operator, although off-diagonal quantum coherence can evolve.
There is a distinct weak-field model in which a retained spin-orbit interaction keeps isolated and one projects the magnetic perturbation into that quartet. The Landé g-factor is then , giving four shifts with equal populations. That calculation requires the additional projection or dominant spin-orbit interaction; it is not diagonalization of the full magnetic Hamiltonian operator specified here, which also mixes the sector.
The separate proton and neutron shell capacities are . Filled shells and paired particles have zero net spin and magnetic dipole moment. The single-particle nuclear magnetic moment is , with orbital factors , and .
For nitrogen, the eight neutrons form a closed shell. The seventh proton occupies , so , and the Landé g-factor gives
Hence the nuclear shell model predicts
Its single-particle spin and parity is . The negative moment results from the proton spin being predominantly opposed to the total angular momentum in this level.
For oxygen, eight protons and the first eight neutrons are paired. The ninth neutron occupies , with , . Since its orbital factor is zero, . Therefore
These are ideal single-particle predictions in units of the nuclear magneton, not fits incorporating nuclear configuration mixing.
A doublet has moment projections . The requested normalization assumes , so the projections are and the two Zeeman energies are . For independent localized ions, the one-ion partition function and thermal moment are
Therefore the spin-one-half paramagnetic magnetization is
It saturates at for a field strong compared with . For a different Landé g-factor, replace every moment by ; alone does not fix that factor.
For the electronic transition, neglect hyperfine structure and use weak-field LS coupling. The Landé g-factors are and , so a transition from to shifts by .
With propagation perpendicular to the magnetic field, linear polarization parallel to the field drives the electric-dipole selection rule . The two shifts are . Perpendicular linear polarization is an equal-amplitude combination of the two field-axis circular components, driving transitions with and shifts . Each geometry therefore selects a doublet, with twice the separation in the perpendicular-polarization case. Equal line heights within a pair require equal lower-state populations and an unsaturating probe; line positions do not require that extra population assumption.
In the simplest nuclear shell model of an odd-mass number nucleus, paired nucleons contribute zero total angular momentum and magnetic dipole moment. The last unpaired nucleon supplies the nuclear spin and the stretched-state moment , where is the Landé g-factor and the nuclear magneton.
Using addition of angular momentum with gives
For , this reduces to . For , it gives
The free-nucleon orbital factors are for a proton and for a neutron. Residual nuclear interactions and configuration mixing can shift measured moments away from this ideal prediction. A single hole in an otherwise closed shell has the same stretched-state moment as a particle in that shell: removing the particle leaves total and moment .
Neglect hyperfine structure and use a magnetic field weak compared with the spin-orbit interaction. The sodium D doublet has transitions and . Their Landé g-factors are , and respectively. With denoting upper and lower magnetic labels, the photon shift is
The first transition has four allowed shifts ; the second has six, . The most blue-shifted component of the second is , with shift . The apparently larger shift is excluded by the electric-dipole selection rule. The level lies above , so in this weak-field model the component also has the shortest wavelength of the whole doublet. [ref]
An original reduced model makes the cancellation explicit. Assume LS coupling, neglect nuclear spin, and write the electronic magnetic dipole moment as . For , , the projection used to derive the Landé g-factor gives
These coefficients follow by substituting or into the angular-momentum projection formula; neither level measures pure spin alone. In a weak uniform magnetic field, adjacent electronic projections have spacing when . Therefore
The common magnetic field and Bohr magneton cancel. The ratio determines , not without further knowledge of . For , it gives . Small departures from are magnified differently from small departures of from ; the two fractional changes should not be identified.
With the stipulated inputs , and , the two electronic frequencies are and . Their ratio is approximately , and inversion recovers . These are ideal electronic lines, not historical gallium data. Nuclear spin, mixing between levels and other deviations from LS coupling require a more complete model in an actual atom.
Use the leading nonrelativistic magnetic coupling for an electronic level with total angular momentum operator , and choose the axis along a uniform external magnetic field , . Write its magnetic quantum number as , so . There are possibilities from to . With Landé g-factor , the first-order shift is
Here is the magnitude of the Electron electric charge, its mass, the Planck constant, and the Bohr magneton. Both and are dimensionless; with measured in tesla and in joules per tesla, is in joules. The photon frequency shift is in hertz, not angular frequency; indices denote upper and lower levels. NIST states this weak-field convention and its orbital/spin assumptions explicitly.[ref]
The sign follows directly from magnetic dipole potential energy. Within this electronic multiplet, the projected magnetic dipole moment is . Therefore has the displayed positive coefficient. Subtracting the shifts of the two levels and using photon energy gives the transition formula. For the orbital case, gives the same leading frequency spacing as the classical charged oscillator. This explains the historical sensitivity to charge divided by mass; the quantum state derivation here is modern.
“Weak” compares interaction energies: mixing with neighbouring fine structure levels must be small, so remains a useful quantum number. The formula keeps the term linear in and neglects quadratic shifts. It also omits hyperfine structure; if that is resolved and controls the coupling, the appropriate total electronic-plus-nuclear angular momentum and splitting factor must replace . Weak compared with fine structure does not automatically mean weak compared with hyperfine structure.
An equal incoherent mixture within a fixed total- multiplet has density operator , where is its orthogonal projection. If the applied-field Hamiltonian operator is proportional to and no spin-orbit interaction is retained, its energy eigenstates are the uncoupled states . The Born rule gives their populations by the formula above, or equivalently by squared Clebsch-Gordan decomposition coefficients. Equal populations of coupled states need not give equal populations of magnetic energy eigenvalues.
For , the nonextremal coupled states have weights and in their two uncoupled components. The five dimensionless magnetic energies then have populations ; the zero energy contains two independent states, each with population . In a different, weak-field approximation with a dominant spin-orbit interaction, projecting into the isolated multiplet gives the Landé g-factor spectrum instead. The full operator and its projection must not be interchanged.
For orbital angular momentum and spin , consider
The quantum number is conserved. The stretched states with have energies . The remaining eigenvalues follow from two blocks with off-diagonal entries :
The subscripts denote . For , the zero-field multiplets are at and at . Their weak-field Zeeman splitting is , with Landé g-factors and , respectively. When , the Paschen-Back effect gives approximate product states and energies . Mixing within a fixed causes an avoided crossing; different sectors can cross because the Hamiltonian does not couple them.