Binding Energy

The amount of energy required to take a nucleus apart. The analogous amount of energy for other bound systems.

  • The potential energy associated with holding a system together, such as the coulomb force between a hydrogen proton and its electron.
  • The difference between the rest energies of the individual particles of a system and the rest energy of a the bound system.
  • The work required to pull particles out of a bound system into free particles at rest.


for hydrogen and single-electron ions, the binding energy of the electron in the ground state is given by:
where
EB = binding energy [J]
MB = mass of the bound system [kg]
mi = mass of ith component [kg]
m = mass [kg]
Z = atomic number
e = electron charge [C]
= Planck′s constant divided by 2π [Js]
ε = permittivity of free space [Fm-1]
c = speed of light [ms-1]

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Subjects: Physics