Atomic electron transition
Atomic electron transition is a change of an electron from one energy level to another within an atom or artificial atom. It appears discontinuous as the electron "jumps" from one energy level to another, typically in a few nanoseconds or less. It is also known as an electronic excitation or atomic transition or quantum jump.
Electron transitions cause the emission or absorption of electromagnetic radiation in the form of quantized units called photons. Their statistics are Poissonian, and the time between jumps is exponentially distributed. The damping time constant relates to the natural, pressure, and field broadening of spectral lines. The larger the energy separation of the states between which the electron jumps, the shorter the wavelength of the photon emitted.
The observability of quantum jumps was predicted by Hans Dehmelt in 1975, and they were first observed using trapped ions of mercury at NIST in 1986.
In 2019 it was demonstrated in an experiment with a superconducting artificial atom consisting of two strongly-hybridized transmon qubits placed inside a readout resonator cavity at 15 mK, that the evolution of some jumps is continuous, coherent, deterministic, and reversible. On the other hand other quantum jumps are inherently unpredictable ie. nondeterministic.
