Excitation is an elevation in energy level above an arbitrary baseline energy state. In physics there is a specific technical definition for energy level which is often associated with an atom being excited to an excited state.In quantum mechanics an excited state of a system (such as an atom, molecule or nucleus) is any quantum state of the system that has a higher energy than the ground state (that is, more energy than the absolute minimum). The temperature of a group of particles is indicative of the level of excitation.
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Compare with ground state .An atom or molecule which has absorbed energy is said to be in an excited state. Excited states tend to have short lifetimes; they lose energy either through collisions or by emitting photons to "relax" back down to their ground states .