What information is provided by the magnetic quantum number? Give the values of l and m for 3P x orbital. [1+1]

The magnetic quantum number ($m_l$) provides information about the orientation of an orbital in space relative to the three coordinate axes. It determines the number of orbitals in a subshell and their specific shapes (e.g., $p_x$, $p_y$, $p_z$).

For the $3p_x$ orbital:

• The azimuthal quantum number ($l$) for a $p$ subshell is 1 (since $l=1$ for $p$ orbitals).
• The magnetic quantum number ($m_l$) for the $p_x$ orbital is 0 (since $p_x$ corresponds to the orientation along the x-axis, where $m_l=-1,0,+1$ for $p_x,p_y,p_z$ respectively).

Thus, for $3p_x$:

• $l=1$
• $m_l=0$