Hydrogen atom in a magnetic field: electromagnetic transitions of the lowest states

Abstract

A detailed study of the lowest states $1s_0, 2p_{-1}, 2p_0$ of the hydrogen atom placed in a magnetic field $B\in(0-4.414\times 10^{13} {\rm G})$ and their electromagnetic transitions ($1s_{0} \leftrightarrow 2p_{-1}$ and $ 1s_{0} \leftrightarrow 2p_{0}$) is carried out in the Born Oppenheimer approximation. The variational method is used with a physically motivated recipe to design simple trial functions applicable to the whole domain of magnetic fields. We show that the proposed functions yield very accurate results for the ionization (binding) energies. Dipole and oscillator strengths are in good agreement with results by Ruder {\em et al.} \cite{Ruderbook} although we observe deviations up to $\sim 30%$ for the oscillator strength of the (linearly polarized) electromagnetic transition $1s_{0} \leftrightarrow 2p_{0}$ at strong magnetic fields $B\gtrsim 1000$ a.u.