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Re: spectroscopy question

Hi,
The absorption spectrum usually is limited to
transitions from the ground state. In emission,
an excited state may de-excite to an intermediate
state, OR the upper state may not even be
connected by a single transition to ground, OR in
the extreme case, the excited state may not even
have a connection to ground (For example,
initially a collision excites an atom in a singlet
ground state to a triplet state. In pure LS
coupling is are no radiative dipole transitions
between singlet and triplets.)


Thanks
Roger Haar


Larry Smith wrote:

I'm having a brain freeze. The text says "In general, not all of the lines
present in the emission spectrum of an element are present in the element's
absorption spectrum." A student asked me why and I drew a blank. Help?

Thanks,
Larry