How does an electron jumping down an orbital create photons?
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It’s about conservation of energy.
The energy in this case is related to “how far” the electron is from the nucleus. “Closer” charges have less energy than charges that are farther away. Sort of like how picking up a rock gives it more potential energy, and dropping it releases that energy. The quotes are there because electron orbitals aren’t like planets orbiting the sun. They’re more like 3D standing waves of probability density clouds.
Since the energy being lost is from electromagnetic potential, (or transfer of angular momentum via electromagnetic interaction) and electromagnetism is mediated by photons, the energy is released in the form of a photon.
So to rephrase a bit, it’s not so much that jumping down is the cause of a photon being emitted, or the photon being emitted is the cause of the election jumping down, but rather that both things must happen at the same time as they are part of the same process of releasing energy.
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