A Higher Order Approximation for the Electronic Structure of Hydrogen in Metals

Abstract

A functional energy difference method based on first principles is used to calculate the electronic contribution to the storage energy of hydrogen impurities in metals. That electronic problem is treated in a higher order approximation which means considering the coupling between one-electron wavefunctions and three-particle amplitudes. A formalism is presented to eliminate all higher order correlations and to reduce the whole system to a one-particle Schrödinger equation with the help of a suitable G reen’s function. The resulting one-electron eigenvalue problem contains some logarithmic singularities due to the fact that there is no gap between occupied and unoccupied electron states in the band structure of a metal. In an electron gas model a convergent theory is reached by an improvement of the Green’s function leading to a screening of the long-range Coulomb potentials. The result is a complicated non-linear algebraic eigenvalue equation which is solved numerically for the special case of a single hydrogen perturbation in a magnesium crystal. The solution shows the influence of higher order electron correlations on the electronic energy eigenvalue of an interstitial hydrogen centre plot as a function of host lattice distortions.