At the same time that Schrödinger proposed his time-independent equation to describe the stationary states, he also proposed a time-dependent equation to describe how a system changes from one state to another. By replacing the energy E in Schrödinger’s equation with a time-derivative operator, he generalized his wave equation to determine the time variation of the wave function as well as its spatial variation. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation reads The quantity i is the square root of −1. The function Ψ varies with time t as well as with position x, y, z. For a system with constant energy, E, Ψ has the form where exp stands for the exponential function, and the time-dependent Schrödinger equation reduces to the time-independent form.

The probability of a transition between one atomic stationary state and some other state can be calculated with the aid of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. For example, an atom may change spontaneously from one state to another state with less energy, emitting the difference in energy as a photon with a frequency given by the Bohr relation. If electromagnetic radiation is applied to a set of atoms and if the frequency of the radiation matches the energy difference between two stationary states, transitions can be stimulated. In a stimulated transition, the energy of the atom may increase—i.e., the atom may absorb a photon from the radiation—or the energy of the atom may decrease, with the emission of a photon, which adds to the energy of the radiation. Such stimulated emission processes form the basic mechanism for the operation of lasers. The probability of a transition from one state to another depends on the values of the l, m, m_s quantum numbers of the initial and final states. For most values, the transition probability is effectively zero. However, for certain changes in the quantum numbers, summarized as selection rules, there is a finite probability. For example, according to one important selection rule, the l value changes by unity because photons have a spin of 1. The selection rules for radiation relate to the angular momentum properties of the stationary states. The absorbed or emitted photon has its own angular momentum, and the selection rules reflect the conservation of angular momentum between the atoms and the radiation.

Tunneling

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The phenomenon of tunneling, which has no counterpart in classical physics, is an important consequence of quantum mechanics. Consider a particle with energy E in the inner region of a one-dimensional potential well V(x), as shown in Figure 1. (A potential well is a potential that has a lower value in a certain region of space than in the neighbouring regions.) In classical mechanics, if E < V₀ (the maximum height of the potential barrier), the particle remains in the well forever; if E > V₀, the particle escapes. In quantum mechanics, the situation is not so simple. The particle can escape even if its energy E is below the height of the barrier V₀, although the probability of escape is small unless E is close to V₀. In that case, the particle may tunnel through the potential barrier and emerge with the same energy E.

The phenomenon of tunneling has many important applications. For example, it describes a type of radioactive decay in which a nucleus emits an alpha particle (a helium nucleus). According to the quantum explanation given independently by George Gamow and by Ronald W. Gurney and Edward Condon in 1928, the alpha particle is confined before the decay by a potential of the shape shown in Figure 1. For a given nuclear species, it is possible to measure the energy E of the emitted alpha particle and the average lifetime τ of the nucleus before decay. The lifetime of the nucleus is a measure of the probability of tunneling through the barrier—the shorter the lifetime, the higher the probability. With plausible assumptions about the general form of the potential function, it is possible to calculate a relationship between τ and E that is applicable to all alpha emitters. This theory, which is borne out by experiment, shows that the probability of tunneling, and hence the value of τ, is extremely sensitive to the value of E. For all known alpha-particle emitters, the value of E varies from about 2 to 8 million electron volts, or MeV (1 MeV = 10⁶ electron volts). Thus, the value of E varies only by a factor of 4, whereas the range of τ is from about 10¹¹ years down to about 10⁻⁶ second, a factor of 10²⁴. It would be difficult to account for this sensitivity of τ to the value of E by any theory other than quantum mechanical tunneling.