Simulation Study of Aspects of the Classical Hydrogen Atom Interacting with Electromagnetic Radiation: Elliptical Orbits

  • Authors:

  • Daniel C. Cole;Yi Zou

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Manufacturing Engineering, 15 St. Mary's Street, Boston University, Brookline, Massachusetts 02446. dccole@bu.edu;Department of Manufacturing Engineering, 15 St. Mary's Street, Boston University, Brookline, Massachusetts 02446

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Scientific Computing
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

The present study examines the behavior of a classical charged point particle in near-elliptic orbits about an infinitely massive and oppositely charged nucleus, while acted upon by applied electromagnetic radiation. As recently shown for near-circular orbits, and now extended here to the elliptical case, rather surprising nonlinear dynamical effects are readily produced for this simple system. A broad range of stability-like conditions can be achieved by applying radiation to this classical atom. A perfect balance condition is examined, which requires an infinite number of plane waves representing harmonics of the orbital motion. By applying a scale factor to this radiation, stability-like conditions are produced where periodic variations in semimajor and semiminor axes occur for extended periods of time, before orbital decay eventually takes over due to the effects of radiation reaction. This work is expected to lead to both practical suggestions on experimental ideas involving controlling ionization and stabilization conditions, as well as hopefully aiding in theoretical explorations of stochastic electrodynamics.