Jupiter’s ,,Trojans" on an Atomic Scale

The planet Jupiter keeps asteroids on stable orbits - and in a similar way, electrons can be stabilized in their orbit around the atomic nucleus. Calculations carried out at the Vienna University of Technology have now been verified in an experiment. Planets can orbit a star for billions of years. Electrons circling the atomic nucleus are often visualized as tiny planets. But due to quantum effects, the behavior of atoms usually differs significantly from planetary systems. Austrian and US-American scientists have now succeeded in keeping electrons on planet-like orbits for a long time. This was done using an idea from astronomy: Jupiter stabilizes the orbits of asteroids (the so called "Trojans"), and in a very similar way, the orbits of electrons around the nucleus can be stabilized using an electromagnetic field.