Generalized Hartree-Fock method for electron-atom scattering
- Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003 (United States)
In the widely used Hartree-Fock procedure for atomic structure calculations, trial functions in the form of linear combinations of Slater determinants are constructed and the Rayleigh-Ritz minimum principle is applied to determine the best in that class. A generalization of this approach, applicable to low-energy electron-atom scattering, is developed here. The method is based on a unique decomposition of the scattering wave function into open- and closed-channel components, so chosen that an approximation to the closed-channel component may be obtained by adopting it as a trial function in a minimum principle, whose rigor can be maintained even when the target wave functions are imprecisely known. Given a closed-channel trial function, the full scattering function may be determined from the solution of an effective one-body Schr{umlt o}dinger equation. Alternatively, in a generalized Hartree-Fock approach, the minimum principle leads to coupled integrodifferential equations to be satisfied by the basis functions appearing in a Slater-determinant representation of the closed-channel wave function; it also provides a procedure for optimizing the choice of nonlinear parameters in a variational determination of these basis functions. Inclusion of additional Slater determinants in the closed-channel trial function allows for systematic improvement of that function, as well as the calculated scattering parameters, with the possibility of spurious singularities avoided. Electron-electron correlations can be important in accounting for long-range forces and resonances. These correlation effects can be included explicitly by suitable choice of one component of the closed-channel wave function; the remaining component may then be determined by the generalized Hartree-Fock procedure. As a simple test, the method is applied to s-wave scattering of positrons by hydrogen. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
- OSTI ID:
- 538501
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review A, Journal Name: Physical Review A Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 56; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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