User:Anpa12/sandbox

= Draft! = For the TV series, see Quantum Leap. For the sculpture, see The Quantum Leap.

Atomic electron transition is a change (or jump) of an electron from one energy level to another within an atom or artificial atom. It appears discontinuous as the electron "jumps" from one energy level to another, typically in a few nanoseconds or less. It is also known as an electronic (de-)excitation or atomic transition or quantum jump.

Electron transitions cause the emission or absorption of electromagnetic radiation in the form of quantized units called photons. Their statistics are Poissonian, and the time between jumps is exponentially distributed. The damping time constant (which ranges from nanoseconds to a few seconds) relates to the natural, pressure, and field broadening of spectral lines. The larger the energy separation of the states between which the electron jumps, the shorter the wavelength of the photon emitted.

History
Danish physicist Niels Bohr first theorized that electrons can perform quantum jumps in 1913.

The observability of quantum jumps was predicted by Hans Dehmelt in 1975, and they were first observed using trapped ions of mercury at NIST in 1986.

Burst noise
(to come)

Line Spectra
(to come)

Phosphorescence
(to come)

Recent discoveries
In 2019, it was demonstrated in an experiment with a superconducting artificial atom consisting of two strongly-hybridized transmon qubits placed inside a readout resonator cavity at 15 mK, that the evolution of some jumps is continuous, coherent, deterministic, and reversible. On the other hand, other quantum jumps are inherently unpredictable, i.e., nondeterministic.

Plan of attack

 * Sections
 * It's only an intro right now. I could divide it up using headings I find from other articles on similar topics and of similar size.
 * Right now, I'd like to add sections on History, Applications, and Process
 * References
 * There's only six so I'll see what I can find and expand upon.
 * I'd also like to substitute some sources for more credible ones. For example, one is a professor's personal website/class material, and another is a preprint exclusive on the arXiv.
 * Graphics
 * This article could definitely use pictures! I'd like to find something like a Bohr diagram to explain the different quantum energy levels in an atom and how the electron can only exist in one of those finite energy levels.
 * If I can find something, I'd also like to see photos from the original discovery, or some sort of proof that we knew that the electron was transitioning in experiment.