excited state
Noun
Meaning
English Wikipedia has an article on:excited stateWikipedia
excited state (plural excited states)
(physics) any state of a particle or system of particles that has a higher energy than that of its ground state
Synonyms
Examples
Existence of an excited state is not a prerequisite for the production of inhibition; inhibition can exist apart from excitation no less than, when called forth against an excitation already in progress, it can suppress or moderate it.
If we have an atom that is in an excited state and so is going to emit a photon, we cannot say when it will emit the photon. It has a certain amplitude to emit the photon at any time, and we can predict only a probability for emission; we cannot predict the future exactly.
After a certain time, the electron in an excited state will "jump" (undergo a transition) to a lower state.
After one of these decays the resultant nucleus may be left in an excited state, and in this case it decays to its ground state by emitting high energy photons (gamma decay).
An asterisk is commonly used to designate an excited state.
But each stimulated emission event returns an atom from its excited state to the ground state, reducing the gain of the medium.