Gomez, T.; Nagayama, T.; Fontes, C.; Kilcrease, D.; Hansen, S.; Montgomery, M.; Winget, D. Matrix Methods for Solving Hartree-Fock Equations in Atomic Structure Calculations and Line Broadening. Atoms2018, 6, 22.
Gomez, T.; Nagayama, T.; Fontes, C.; Kilcrease, D.; Hansen, S.; Montgomery, M.; Winget, D. Matrix Methods for Solving Hartree-Fock Equations in Atomic Structure Calculations and Line Broadening. Atoms 2018, 6, 22.
Abstract
Atomic structure of N-electron atoms is often determined using the Hartree-Fock method, which is an integro-differential equation. The exchange term of the Hartree-Fock equations is usually treated as an inhomogeneous term of a differential equation, or with a local density approximation. This work uses matrix methods to solve for the Hartree-Fock equations, rather than the more commonly-used shooting method to integrate an inhomogeneous differential equation. It is well known that a derivative operator can be expressed as a matrix made of finite-difference coefficients; energy eigenvalues and eigenvectors can be obtained by using computer linear-algebra packages. We extend the same technique to integro-differential equations, where a discretized integral can be written as a sum in matrix form. This method is compared against experiment and standard atomic structure calculations. We also can use this method for free-electron wavefunctions. This technique is important for spectral line broadening in two ways: improving the atomic structure calculations, and improving the motion of the plasma electrons that collide with the atom.
Keywords
atomic structure; hartree fock; exchange; line broadening; scattering
Subject
Physical Sciences, Atomic and Molecular Physics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
