Majorana solutions to the two-electron problem

DOI10.1007/S10701-012-9685-1MaRDI QIDQ1936403zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 4 February 2013

Published in Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1207.1666

variational method helium atom Ettore Majorana two-electron problem

History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) Closed and approximate solutions to the Schrödinger, Dirac, Klein-Gordon and other equations of quantum mechanics (81Q05) Spinor and twistor methods applied to problems in quantum theory (81R25) Atomic physics (81V45) History of quantum theory (81-03) Covariant wave equations in quantum theory, relativistic quantum mechanics (81R20)

Abstract: A review of the known different methods and results devised to study the two-electron atom problem, appeared in the early years of quantum mechanics, is given, with particular reference to the calculations of the ground state energy of helium. This is supplemented by several, unpublished results obtained around the same years by Ettore Majorana, which results did not convey in his published papers on the argument, and thus remained unknown until now. Particularly interesting, even for current research in atomic and nuclear physics, is a general variant of the variational method, developed by Majorana in order to take directly into account, already in the trial wavefunction, the action of the full Hamiltonian operator of a given quantum system. Moreover, notable calculations specialized to the study of the two-electron problem show the introduction of the remarkable concept of an effective nuclear charge different for the two electrons (thus generalizing previous known results), and an application of the perturbative method, where the atomic number Z was treated effectively as a continuous variable, contributions to the ground state energy of an atom with given Z coming also from any other Z. Instead, contributions relevant mainly for pedagogical reasons count simple broad range estimates of the helium ionization potential, obtained by suitable choices for the wavefunction, as well as a simple alternative to Hylleraas' method, which led Majorana to first order calculations comparable in accuracy with well-known order 11 results derived, in turn, by Hylleraas.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(3)

This page was built for publication: Majorana solutions to the two-electron problem

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q1936403)