Thursday, June 5, 2014

Planck Constant Not Constant?

It is important to understand that collision between photon and electron is a random process.  More importantly, the KE measured of the ejected electrons is a random variable that is the aggregated result of many random collisions.   This KE is the arithmetic mean of  KEs of many independent collisions.  By the Central Limit Theorem, KE is a random variable described by the Normal Distribution.

From the previous post,  we know that photons and electrons are interacting when the raito \(\cfrac{{r}_{e}}{r}\) is small (\(\cfrac{1}{300}\)).   \({r}_{e}\) is atomic radius, and \(r\) is the radius of the incident photons' helix path.  And it is certain that when \(\cfrac{{r}_{e}}{r}\)  = 1 that collisions is a certainty, and photon frequency \(f\) no longer effect \(E_{max}\).  This corresponds to the plateau part of the proposed \(E_{max}\) vs \(f\) curve in the posting "Fodo Electric Effect".  Therefore the range of concern on the probability graph, given in the post "Why two Ejection Rates? Fido",  governing each individual photon-electron collision narrows to \(0\lt x \lt 1\).

If we assume that all energy from the photon is transferred to the ejected electron on collision, the expected KE of these electrons at an incident photon frequency of \(f\) is,

\(E[KE(x)]=\cfrac{2}{\pi}x.KE_{max}\) , \(x=\cfrac{{r}_{e}}{r}\)

where \(KE_{max}={m}_{p}c^2-\Phi\),

\({m}_{p}c^2\) KE of a photon,

\(\Phi\) the potential energy holding the electron in orbit.

since, \(r=\cfrac{c}{2\pi f}\)    and    \(x=\cfrac{{r}_{e}}{r}\)

\(x=\cfrac { { r }_{ e }2\pi. f }{ c } \)

\(\therefore E[KE(f)]=\cfrac { 4{ r }_{ e } }{ c } .KE_{ max }.f\)

It is a property of the Normal Distribution that its mean is also the maximum,

\(E_{max}(f)=E[KE(f)]=\cfrac { 4{ r }_{ e } }{ c } .KE_{ max }.f\)

If we compare this with Planck's relation,

\(E=h.f =\cfrac { 4{ r }_{ e } }{ c } .KE_{ max }.f\)

then,

\(h=\cfrac { 4{ r }_{ e } }{ c } .KE_{ max }\)

\(h=\cfrac { 4{ r }_{ e } }{ c }({m}_{p}c^2-\Phi)\)

If \(\Phi\propto\cfrac{1}{{r}_{e}}\) then,

\(h=4{ r }_{ e } {m}_{p}c-\cfrac { 4 }{ c }A\)

where is \(A={r}_{e}.\Phi\)    is independent of \({r}_{e}\)

Even if the term \(\cfrac { 4 }{ c }{r}_{e}\Phi\) is small,  \(4{ r }_{ e } {m}_{p}c\) still varies with \({r}_{e}\). The Planck Constant is not a constant.