Past exam of the physics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / Section C / 10

Expand the cloud's potential energy about a stable equilibrium: $U(z)=U(0)+U^{\prime }(0)z+U^{\prime \prime }(0)z^2/2+\cdots$. Equilibrium gives $U^{\prime }(0)=0$, stability gives $U^{\prime \prime }(0)=k>0$, and reflection symmetry also removes odd terms. For small displacements, $U-U(0)\simeq k{z}^2/2$ and $F=-dU/dz\simeq -kz$.

Including the electric and damping forces, Newton's second law is $m\ddot{z}=qE(t)-b\dot{z}-kz$. Dividing by $m$ gives the Lorentz oscillator modelThe specified convention uses $2\gamma$ as the damping coefficient per unit mass.

For the steady response, represent the field by $E_0{e}^{i\omega t}$ and the displacement by $\tilde{z}{e}^{i\omega t}$, taking real parts for physical quantities. Substitution givesDefine the nonnegative amplitude $z_0=|\tilde{z}|$ and $\delta =atan2(2\gamma \omega ,{\omega }_0^2-{\omega }^2)$. ThenFor positive $q$, $\varphi =-\delta$. For electrons $q<0$, the phase of a negatively charged driven oscillator is $\varphi =\pi -\delta$: the low-frequency displacement is opposite to the field, rather than in phase with it. A signed amplitude could absorb this extra $\pi$, but the phase convention must then be stated. The induced dipole $p=qz$ has phase $-\delta$ for either charge sign. Transient free oscillations have been omitted because the question asks for steady state.

For the electron cloud, $q/m=-e/m_e$ andThe visible range corresponds to $\omega =2\pi c/\lambda$ between $2.35\times 10^{15}$ and $4.71\times 10^{15}\mathrm{rad}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, below this resonance. The resonant wavelength is about $180\mathrm{nm}$, in the ultraviolet.

The acceleration amplitude is ${\omega }^2{z}_0$. At fixed incident field amplitude, the scattered intensity is therefore proportional toWell below resonance and outside strong damping corrections, $z_0$ is nearly frequency-independent and this becomes the Rayleigh scattering wavelength dependence $I_{\mathrm{sc}}\propto {\omega }^4\propto {\lambda }^{-4}$. The shortest visible wavelengths are consequently scattered much more strongly into directions away from the direct solar beam than the longest ones, producing a blue sky. The simple fourth-power approximation gives a factor 16 between 400 and 800 nm at equal incident intensity. Retaining the undamped denominator with the given resonance raises that factor to about 22.7, since the upper end is not extremely far below resonance. The exact ratio needs the unspecified damping and incident solar spectrum; the stronger scattering of the blue end is the robust conclusion here.

The model describes frequency-dependent scattering, not the detailed perceived color after solar-spectrum weighting and human visual response. It also explains why treating the electrons as free at visible frequencies would miss the bound-charge fourth-power limit.