Comment on "Stark effect in neutral hydrogen by direct integration of the Hamiltonian in parabolic coordinates"

FRANCISCO M FERNÁNDEZ; JAVIER GARCIA

PHYSICAL REVIEW A - ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015 p. 66501 - 66504

1050-2947

We show that the resonances of the Stark effect in hydrogen reported by Fernández-Menchero and Summers [Phys. Rev. A 88, 022509 (2013)] are considerably less accurate than the number of digits appear to suggest.In particular, the imaginary part of the lowest resonance is several orders of magnitude greater than it shouldbe. We compare the results of that paper with those provided by the Riccati-Padé method, perturbation theory,and an asymptotic expansion for the resonance width. The inaccuracy of those results can be traced back to thelack of precision in the calculation of the matrix elements of the secular equation. We carry out a more accuratecalculation with the same method and show that the agreement with earlier results of other authors is greatlyimproved.