Predicting Atomic Decay Rates Using an Informational-Entropic Approach

Understand

We show that a newly proposed Shannon-like entropic measure of shape complexity applicable to spatially-localized or periodic mathematical functions known as configurational entropy (CE) can be used as a predictor of spontaneous decay rates for one-electron atoms.

• The CE is constructed from the Fourier transform of the atomic probability density.
• For the hydrogen atom with degenerate states labeled with the principal quantum number n, we obtain a scaling law relating the n-averaged decay rates to the respective CE.
• The scaling law allows us to predict the n-averaged decay rate without relying on the traditional computation of dipole matrix elements.