Electronic structure critical parameter for the lithium isoelectronic series

PABLO SERRA; JUAN PABLO NEIROTTI; SABRE KAIS

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 1998 vol. 24 p. 5293 - 5296

0031-9007

The finite-size scaling method is used to calculate the critical parameters for the lithium isoelectronicseries. The critical nuclear charge, which is the minimum charge necessary to bind three electrons, forthe ground state was found to be Zc Ӎ 2. Results show that the analytical behavior of the energy asa function of the nuclear charge for lithium is completely different from that of helium. Analogy withstandard phase transitions show that for helium, the transition from a bound state to a continuum is?first order,? while lithium exhibits a ?second order phase transition.?