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ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION AND MATTER

Substitution of this expression in Fermis Golden Rule Equation (1.103) gives 2 dw = 2 B V A (Eb EA ) = 2 e m
2

4 B eikx (k) p A V 2k

(EB EA + ) (1.113)

Note that the transition probability is of O(e2 ), that the -function requires that EA = EB + and that the operator V must be such that B V A = 0. The expression in Equation (1.113) is rather complicated because of the exponential. We can expand the exponential in a Taylor series and see what we can learn, at least from the rst few terms.

1.4.2 Dipole Transition

Keeping for the moment only the rst term of the expansion of the exponential in Equation (1.113) we get dw = 2 e m
2

4 B (k) p A V 2k

(EB EA + )

(1.114)

This is called the Dipole Approximation for reasons that will become clear shortly. The matrix element B p A can be evaluated as follows BpA =m Bx A = im B [H0 , x] A = im (EB EA ) B x A (1.115)

In the rst step we used the non-relativistic relation between momentum and velocity, in the second we used x = dx = i [H, x] dt (1.116)

with H equal to the charged particle piece of Equation (1.78). The matrix element B x A can be calculated because we assumed we know the eigenkets A and B . The answer depends of course on the specic problem and its eigenkets. For now we dene a quantity, the (transition) Dipole Moment, as D = B ex A (1.117) and use it with Equation (1.115) in Equation (1.114) to get dw = 4 2 2 k | (k) D | (EB EA + k ) V (1.118)