Stationary state

Quantum state with all observables independent of time
the concept used in classical economics

A stationary state is a quantum state with all observables independent of time. It is an eigenvector of the energy operator (instead of a quantum superposition of different energies). It is also called energy eigenvector, energy eigenstate, energy eigenfunction, or energy eigenket. It is very similar to the concept of atomic orbital and molecular orbital in chemistry, with some slight differences explained below.

A stationary state is called stationary because the system remains in the same state as time elapses, in every observable way. For a single particle Hamiltonian, this means that the particle has a constant probability distribution for its position, its velocity, its spin, etc. (This is true assuming the particle's environment is also static, i. e. the Hamiltonian is unchanging in time.) The wavefunction itself is not stationary: It continually changes its overall complex phase factor, so as to form a standing wave. The oscillation frequency of the standing wave, multiplied by Planck's constant, is the energy of the state according to the Planck–Einstein relation. Stationary states are quantum states that are solutions to the time independent Schrödinger equation:

where

This is an eigenvalue equation: is a linear operator on a vector space, is an eigenvector of , and is its eigenvalue. If a stationary state is plugged into the time dependent Schrödinger equation, the result is

Assuming that is time independent (unchanging in time), this equation holds for any time t. Therefore, this is a differential equation describing how varies in time. Its solution is

Therefore, a stationary state is a standing wave that oscillates with an overall complex phase factor, and its oscillation angular frequency is equal to its energy divided by .

Spontaneous decay complicates the question of stationary states. For example, according to simple (nonrelativistic) quantum mechanics, the hydrogen atom has many stationary states: 1s, 2s, 2p, and so on, are all stationary states. But in reality, only the ground state 1s is truly "stationary": An electron in a higher energy level will spontaneously emit one or more photons to decay into the ground state. This seems to contradict the idea that stationary states should have unchanging properties. The explanation is that the Hamiltonian used in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is only an approximation to the Hamiltonian from quantum field theory. The higher energy electron states (2s, 2p, 3s, etc.) are stationary states according to the approximate Hamiltonian, but not stationary according to the true Hamiltonian, because of vacuum fluctuations. On the other hand, the 1s state is truly a stationary state, according to both the approximate and the true Hamiltonian.

An orbital is a stationary state (or approximation thereof) of a one electron atom or molecule; more specifically, an atomic orbital for an electron in an atom, or a molecular orbital for an electron in a molecule. For a molecule that contains only a single electron (e. g. atomic hydrogen or H2+), an orbital is exactly the same as a total stationary state of the molecule. However, for a many electron molecule, an orbital is completely different from a total stationary state, which is a many particle state requiring a more complicated description (such as a Slater determinant). In particular, in a many electron molecule, an orbital is not the total stationary state of the molecule, but rather the stationary state of a single electron within the molecule. This concept of an orbital is only meaningful under the approximation that if we ignore the electron–electron instantaneous repulsion terms in the Hamiltonian as a simplifying assumption, we can decompose the total eigenvector of a many electron molecule into separate contributions from individual electron stationary states (orbitals), each of which are obtained under the one electron approximation. (Luckily, chemists and physicists can often (but not always) use this "single electron approximation".) In this sense, in a many electron system, an orbital can be considered as the stationary state of an individual electron in the system. In chemistry, calculation of molecular orbitals typically also assume the Born–Oppenheimer approximation.