Zeemansiirtymiä

Zeemansiirtymiä, also known as Zeeman effect, is a physical phenomenon observed in atomic spectroscopy. It refers to the splitting of spectral lines of atoms when they are placed in an external magnetic field. This splitting occurs because the magnetic field interacts with the magnetic dipole moment of the electrons within the atom. According to quantum mechanics, the energy levels of electrons in an atom are quantized, and the presence of a magnetic field lifts this degeneracy, causing the energy levels to split into multiple sublevels. The magnitude of the splitting is proportional to the strength of the magnetic field.

The Zeeman effect was first discovered by the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman in 1896 while he was experimenting with sodium vapor. He observed that the spectral lines of sodium broadened and then split into several components when subjected to a strong magnetic field. This discovery provided crucial evidence for the existence of electron spin and helped to validate the developing quantum theory of the atom. The effect can be classified into two types: the normal Zeeman effect, where spectral lines split into three components, and the anomalous Zeeman effect, where they split into more than three components. The anomalous effect is more common and arises due to the coupling of orbital and spin angular momenta of the electrons. The Zeeman effect has important applications in various fields, including astrophysics for determining the magnetic fields of stars and in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques.