Quantum critical phenomena and stability of atomic and molecular ions

SABRE KAIS; PABLO SERRA

INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS IN PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2000 vol. 19 p. 97 - 121

0144-235X

In this review we discuss quantum phase transitions and the mappingbetween symmetry breaking of electronic structure configurations at thelarge-dimension limit and mean-field theory of phase transitions. Weshow that the finite size scaling method can be used for thecalculations of the critical parameters of the few-body Schrodingerequation. In this approach, the finite size corresponds to the number ofelements in a complete basis set used to expand the exact eigenfunctionof a given Hamiltonian. The critical parameters such as the criticalnuclear charges will be used to explain and predict the stability ofatomic and molecular negative ions. For N-electron atoms with 2 N 86,results show that, at most, only one electron can be added to a freeatom in the gas phase. However, doubly charged atomic negative ionsmight exist in a strong magnetic field.