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ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION AND MATTER

order of p k and x. That this is so can be seen as follows ( is an arbitrary ket) (k p)( x) = pi ki j xj 1 ki xj i xi j 1 1 = ki j ij + ki j xj i i xi 1 = ( k) + ki j xj pi i = ( x)(k p) =

(1.131)

The term with (k) is zero in the Coulomb Gauge. The second term in the second line of Equation (1.128) becomes with Equation (1.131) ( x)(k p) = {k [H0 , x] im} ( x) (1.132)

We must add the relations Equation (1.130) and Equation (1.132). As we do this we keep k to the left kj xj i [H0 , xi ] im + kj [H0 , xj ] i xi im = i kj [H0 , xi xj ] im (1.133)

To get the corresponding matrix element we must sandwich this result between A and B B [H0 , xi xj ] A = (EB EA ) B xi xj A = k where the electric quadrupole moment Qij is Qij = e B xi xj 1 ij x2 A 3 (1.135) Qij e (1.134)

The extra term proportional to ij in Equation (1.135) does not matter because in Equation (1.133) it gets multiplied by i kj giving k which is zero in the Coulomb Gauge, see Equation (1.19). We interpret this as an electric quadrupole transition. Its transition probability is of the same order of magnitude as the one from the magnetic dipole moment and much smaller then the transition probability from the electric dipole moment. The various multipole transitions are called E1 for electric dipole, M1 for magnetic dipole, E2 for electric quadrupole, M2 for magnetic quadrupole, etc., transitions. The order of magnitudes of their transition probabilities are respectively (size/)2 for E1, (size/)4 for M1 and E2, . . . where is the wavelength of the emitted photon and is the ne structure constant. For