Energy levels of hydrogen atoms in a strong magnetic field

Abstract

Energy levels of a hydrogen atom in a strong magnetic field are calculated by expanding the wavefunction in terms of the Landau orbitals. The Coulomb potential is treated as a perturbation which gives rise to coupling between various orbitals. The resulting set of coupled ordinary differential equations is solved iteratively. For fields stronger than 10¹⁰ G the authors present more accurate results than previous authors. A qualitative discussion of the energy spectrum is also given along with the solution of the level correspondence problem. Previous solutions of the problem are in contradiction with the non-crossing rule. The existence of transversally excited metastable states which perform a radiationless transition to the continuum spectrum is pointed out.