What is meant by an excited atom?
All that is meant by an 'excited' atom is that one or more of the atoms electrons in it's shells, are then excited into shells that are in higher energy states that they were in before.
Furthermore, electrons can be excited by high speed electrons that collide with the bound electron in the atom shel. Or the electron absorbs a photon of energy that excatly equals the energy differece between the two energy states.
RW
Related Physics A Level answers
All answers ▸Explain why the pressure exerted by a gas increases as they are heated at constant volume, with references to the kinetic theory of gases.
A car is travelling at 10m/s when it brakes and decelerates at 2ms^-2 to a stop. How long does the car take to stop?
What is a moment?
How many joules of heat energy are required to raise the temperature of 10kg of water from 22⁰C to 27⁰C? (The Specific Heat Capacity of water is 4200 Jkg^-1⁰C^-1)