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In high school we are taught that Zeeman and Stark effect directly lead to the findings of further divisions of an electron's shell in an atom.

What is exactly the reason that causes the spectral lines of an atom to split when an external magnetic or electric field is applied ?

And in what ways does this explain the existence of subshells?

Mithoron
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Substitute_Y
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    It's not a "reaction", but rather a breaking of symmetry. Consider a sphere - a vibration viewed from any direction appears the same. Squish the sphere a bit, and there would be new modes of vibration that could be differentiated from each other. – DrMoishe Pippik Jun 12 '23 at 17:32
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    See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Atomic/stark.html and http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/zeeman.html – Poutnik Jun 12 '23 at 18:44
  • These effects split the energy of already degenerate energy levels, say the px, py, pz levels in an atom. This lowers the overall energy, 1 level does down, one remains unchanged, and the last one goes up. As these levels are split this leads to new transitions and so new spectral lines. (Btw the Zeeman effect splits the nuclear spin levels in, for example, H atoms and so leads to NMR spectroscopy) – porphyrin Jun 14 '23 at 09:01

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