DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRON ORBITS HAVING A DEFINITE ANGULAR-MOMENTUM INA STATIC MAGNETIC-FIELD

Electron orbits having a definite angular momentum in a static magneti c field are calculated with the aid of the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantizatio n rules. The quantization gives that orbits are arranged along a strai ght line but the distance between the centers of two neighboring orbit s decreases with increase of the absolute value of the angular momentu m. With the energy correction equal to the zero-point energy of the ha rmonic oscillator, the distribution of orbits becomes identical to tha t obtained recently with the aid of a mixed semiclassical and quantum mechanical theory. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.