# Questions tagged [orbitals]

An orbital is a one-electron wavefunction, usually derived by solving the Schrodinger equation. This tag applies to questions about all forms of orbitals; additionally, questions about the construction and properties of molecular orbitals should be tagged with [molecular-orbital-theory].

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### Relation between the number of hybridised orbitals and the number of sigma bonds

March's Advanced Organic Chemistry (8th Ed.), has in its first chapter several tantalizing statements of the following variety; Boron has only three valence electrons available to form bonds, hence ...
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### Substitution reaction with pentacoordinate silicon intermediate [duplicate]

Why does electonegative atom, in our case fluorine, prefer to attack d orbital than antibonding σ orbital?What geometric constraints are they talking about? I need an answer in terms of d orbitals of ...
33 views

### Can chlorine show negative mesomeric effect due to presence of d orbital? [closed]

I was wondering in this problem that if chlorine will show positive mesomeric effect as it is at para-position and strength of inductive effect decreases with distance from carbon atom and chlorine ...
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### Orbital Interaction for electrophile and nucleophile

Clearly the above diagrams depict the interaction between empty orbital of electrophile with filled orbital of nucleophile. We may assume that the HOMO of nucleophile being more electronegative will ...
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### In half-filled atomic orbitals, why is spin +1/2?

From Hund's rule, we get that in half filled orbitals, all the electrons will have the same spin in their respective orbitals to maximize exchange energy. But, in all text books, the spin is given as +...
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### Names of the f suborbitals. (Reference Request)

Today, I have been browsing the internet to know the names of the "f" orbitals. But I have varying answers on the web. Different sources seem to be stating different names. Like here, and ...
32 views

### S(p)-C(p) vs. O(p)-C(p) overlap

In Grossman, The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms, he provides the following explanation. The question asks to explain why the difference in pKa values between PhSH and EtSH is ...
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### Basics of wave-mechanical model of atom

Why is it that for the $\mathrm{d}$ subshell we have $\ \ \mathrm{d}_{xy}, \ \ \mathrm{d}_{yz}, \ \ \mathrm{d}_{xz}, \ \ \mathrm{d}_{x^{2}-y^{2}},$ and $\mathrm{d}_{z^{2}}$ orbitals only? Why aren't ...
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### Excitation of electron in Niels Bohr's atomic model

Professor taught us that an electron gains or looses only those energies which are equal to difference in two energy levels. That is $E_1 + \Delta E = E_2$ or $E_1 + \Delta E = E_3.$ What if we give, ...
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### When is the n+l rule followed when working with energy of different orbitals?

While going through my book, I came across a problem which gave some options about the order of energy of 3s, 3p and 3d orbitals of hydrogen atom. The correct answer was given as: 3s, 3p and 3d ...
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### Why does dilithium have a longer bond length than dihydrogen?

I've tried MO theory however they both have a bond order of 1. Which means we can not relate the bond order to the bond length. My thinking - I think that the h2 bond length is shorter due to only ...
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### Why is it that nitrogen hybridizes in ammonia, yet in F2, fluorine does not [closed]

It seems rather arbitrary to me that we have decided that nitrogen sp3 hybridizes in ammonia to stay consistent with VSEPR, yet that fluorine uses its 2p orbital to bond with another fluorine in F2 (I....
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### Quantum numbers associated with electron

I wanted to get your opinion on something. I was given the electron 5p^3 and was told to find the quantum numbers associated with it. I got: n=5 l=1 Ml=1 Ms= +1/2 However, my teacher has told me that ...
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### Interpreting data on molecular orbitals in GaussView 6.0 [duplicate]

Introduction I have been trying to use computational software to gain more insight into how molecular orbitals are formed, as well as their shapes and sizes in accordance with Molecular Orbital Theory....
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### Oribital comparison [closed]

When comparing the orbitals 2s and 2p only in the z axis, do they have the same energy levels and size? I am not so sure just because I know they both have a quantum number of 2. Thank you in advance!
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### Confusion regarding orbital, electron and Quantum no’s

Now , In some textbook I have read that orbital is nothing but the shape of electron . s,p,d orbitals etc. So , after knowing shape of an orbital . I got to know that inside the orbital is an electron ...
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### What are “Secondary Orbital Interactions” in Organic Chemistry? [closed]

We used these to analyze the stability of molecules in an Organic Chemistry Course. My teacher analyses the stability of compounds on 3 levels: Atom level by studying the hybridization of the main ...
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### do electrons in different orbitasl in a same subshell have same energy

In valence bond theory, I suppose that electrons in say, 2px and 2py have the same energy because of the same structure of orbitals. But what about 3dxy and 3dz^2? Do they also have the same energy? I ...
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When trying to solve the Schrodinger equation for the electronic hamiltonian: $$H_{el} = \sum_{i=1}^{N} \bigg( - \frac{1}{2}\nabla_i^2 - \sum_A \frac{Z}{r_{i_A}} \bigg) + \sum_{i>j=1}^{N}\frac{1}{... 2answers 71 views ### Why electrons do not distribute evenly among the atoms in a molecule? [closed] I was wondering why the state where electrons are evenly (or the closest to being evenly) distributed among the atoms in a molecule is not the lowest energy state? For example, in a water molecule it ... 0answers 22 views ### How do we explain NMR shielding in filled valence shells? It is universally recognized that NMR measures the shielding of nuclei from magnetic fields by electrons. The electrons move, producing an eddy current that produces an opposing magnetic field. It is ... 1answer 51 views ### Stability of an atom in absence of EM field According to Bohr model of atom, electrons move up an energy level in presence of EM field and emit a photon moving down the level. In complete absence of any external EM field, shouldn't the electron ... 1answer 38 views ### Radial wave-functions and spherical harmonics of p-orbitals in a certain hypothesis I know that the s-orbitals of H atom are spherically symmetrical. But the p,d or f orbitals aren't. So, the H-atom needn't necessarily be spherically symmetrical, as the wave-function would be a ... 2answers 85 views ### Why is the radial distribution at the nucleus 0 but not the radial wave function? The modulus squared of the radial wave function gives the probability of finding an electron in an infinitesimal volume dv. On the other hand, the radial distribution gives the probability of finding ... 1answer 34 views ### Are electron orbital orientations filled in any particular order? [duplicate] This question is about the magnetic quantum numbers and their corresponding orbital orientations, e.g., px, dyz, etc. Are the electrons in any given subshell distributed across the orbitals in any ... 1answer 75 views ### Why are s orbitals more “penetrating” than p orbitals? In polyelectronic atoms, the reduction in the net central force due to electron-electron repulsion is accounted for through an effective nuclear charge that depends on a “shielding effect” of inner ... 1answer 95 views ### Is the pz orbital wave function three- or four-dimensional? The wave function of the 2\mathrm{p}_z orbital is$$Ψ = \frac{1}{4\sqrt{2π}}\left(\frac Z a\right)^{5/2} r \mathrm e^{-Zr/a}\cos θ.$$I'm confused if this function will be a three-dimensional ... 1answer 51 views ### Distance of subshells from nucleus [closed] Which subshell is more closer to the nucleus.4f or 6s? 6s gets filled first so does it have to be more closer to the nucleus? 0answers 39 views ### The covalent bond in HCl and the Lewis model Can the formation of the covalent bond in HCl be explained through the hybridization model? We know for sure that it can be explained by the theory of molecular orbitals. In this way, it would be ... 0answers 45 views ### How are natural orbitals derived from the electron density matrix? I have a 4\times4 electron density matrix in 6-31G for \ce{H2} using psi4 and I am wondering how to get the natural orbitals of the system. I have diagonalised the density matrix \mathbf{M} into ... 2answers 127 views ### Does an electron's spin change when being excited? My preconception is that when you fill an empty orbital by exciting an electron (with a photon), the empty orbital should be filled by an electron with the same spin. However, I've seen examples of ... 3answers 657 views ### Why do electrons jump back after absorbing energy and moving to a higher energy level? Electrons in a shell absorb energy and move to higher energy levels, but they release their energy and jump back to the shell they originally were in. Why do they jump back? Why can they not keep ... 1answer 87 views ### What does orbital mean, exactly? [duplicate] My teacher told me that orbital is the probability distribution data of the electron around nucleus which is amplitude data in a way. An example of how my teacher actually told what it means involves ... 3answers 360 views ### Does electron mass decrease when it changes its orbit? I have studied this in my chapter atomic structure that when an electron changes its orbit from lower energy to higher energy state , it does not state in my book that it moves there but that it ... 0answers 24 views ### Why are there only a few types of sigma overlaps? While studying σ-bonds, I saw that only s–s, s–p and p–p orbital overlaps are being taught. But are there more such cases possible? Because apart from s and p, there are also d and f orbitals. 1answer 82 views ### What does Pauli’s exclusion principle mean in atomic or fundamental way? [closed] It means is that no electron can have same n , l and m_l but can have two different spin quantum number. I want to know why is this rule valid?Means there must be some other things happening also ... 1answer 146 views ### Is the quantum number L a combination of the azimuthal and magnetic quantum numbers (\ell, m_\ell)? Somehow, I am getting confused about this... In the J=L+S equation about total angular momentum, which of the four quantum numbers used to describe the electrons and their states is included in the ... 2answers 104 views ### Half sigma bonds \ce{N2+} has 2 \pi-bonds and a half sigma bond. First of all, how can a "half" sigma bond exist? Usually when we encounter non integral bond orders, it is mostly because of resonance ... 1answer 118 views ### Why is HBr colorless while Br2 isn't? Bromine (\ce{Br2}) has a dark reddish color. If it reacts with something like benzene, this results in the formation of Bromobenzene and \ce{HBr}:$$\ce{Br2 + C6H6 ->[{Cat.}]C6H5Br + HBr}$$It ... 0answers 36 views ### What is the definition of energy-independent basis? I am reading this article by Zatsarinny and Fischer [1]. At some point they span a wave function \Psi_{E} in terms of energy independent basis$$\Psi_{E}=\sum_{k} A_{E k} \Psi_{k}$$For example, The ... 1answer 67 views ### Electron configuration of non-hybridized carbon I'm currently learning about orbital hybridization in carbon. I see that carbon has an electron configuration of 1s2 2s2 2p2. However, there are actually three p-orbitals in the second shell, namely ... 1answer 140 views ### Can we observe the shapes of MOs? [duplicate] Condensed question formulation: Is there an experimental method to directly visualise the 3D form of a MO wave function, or at least the electron density associated with it? Full statement: ... 0answers 72 views ### Help determining normalisation constant in SALC of methane We have been told that a symmetry adapted combination of four hydrogen orbitals is used to create localised hydrogen orbitals for methane. These orthonormal combinations are denoted ψa1, ψt’2, ψt’’2 ... 1answer 85 views ### Does the octet rule only apply to the second and third shell or does it apply further? In my textbook, examples for the octet rule are only given for up to the third shell. What about the fourth and fifth shell? I still get confused over the fact that the n=3 shell has 18 electrons ... 1answer 38 views ### Alternative explanation of ethene's pi bond [closed] This tutorial about ethene's bonds has the following paragraph that I hope someone can paraphrase in a better way: The pi bond dominates the chemistry of ethene. It is very vulnerable to attack - a ... 0answers 433 views ### How is it possible to draw a radial wave function for the 2p orbital? Below is a picture of the radial component of the wave function distribution for the 1 through 3s orbitals. It makes sense to me that there are points where the wave function is 0, since by definition,... 1answer 152 views ### What did I do wrong in my orbital notation for this Os (Osmium) question? I was given a question where I had to write the orbital notation of Osmium (Os) and I got it wrong. The question: 6s2 --> ↑↓ 4f --> ↑↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑↓ 5d6 --> ↑↓↑↓↑↑ The arrows above are my ... 0answers 111 views ### Misconception in valence bond theory Since the overlap increases with directional properties of orbital,$$\ce{p - p > s - s > s - p}$$However it is also observed that the bond strength of$$\ce{H-F > H-H > F-F}\ce{\{s ...
when we talk about stability of halogen anions we say, $\ce{I-} \gt \ce{Br-} \gt \ce{Cl-} \gt \ce{F-}$, and the reason is that "the negative charge (the electrons) have more space to move about ...