Degeneracy

[Dina Geotas 4A]

What is degeneracy?

[Alyssa Bryan 3F]

Degeneracy refers to when an orbital has equal energy. For example, the p orbital would have a degeneracy of 3 and the d orbital a degeneracy of 5.

[Ashley Kim]

This is because the p orbital has three degenerate orbitals: px, py, and pz. There are 3 orbitals (electron probability clouds) that have the same energy. The electrons in these clouds have the chance of moving in different places with the SAME energy.

[Ibrahim Malik 1H]

Degeneracy refers to the equal energy states within a certain orbital. The p-orbital would have a degeneracy of 3 because there are 3 different energy states:2px, 2py, and 2pz.

[katie_sutton1B]

Is this the one where you would just square the value of (n) level to find the degeneracy?

[yuetao4k]

To add on, if the orbital you’re talking about isn’t the p orbital, how do you know the degeneracy?