Question

Degeneracy of ground state of carbon problems

Answer 1

By ground state we mean that an atom, ion or electron has lowest possible energy and is stable. We say that in ground state, an entity is stable and has least energy. Greater amount of energy makes anything unstable. Thus, when an atom, energy or ion possesses energy greater than that in the ground state, it is known to be in excited state. Hence

Excited state is the state achieved by an ion upon absorption of energy. The state of ion when no energy is absorbed by the ion and it is stable is known as ground state of the ion.

Also note that carbon as such does not form ions. There are 4 electrons in the valence shell of carbon, and it is difficult to both gain and lose 4 electrons. Carbon normally forms covalent compounds by sharing electrons and the existence of carbon ion is not too well known. 

Answer 2

Explanation:

• And this series works out to be just n2. So the degeneracy of the energy levels of the hydrogen atom is n2. For example, the ground state, n = 1, has degeneracy = n2 = 1 (which makes sense because l, and therefore m, can only equal zero for this state).