Electron correlation, isoelectronic, isonuclear, spin, and excitation aspects of Politzer–Parr partitioning

Abstract

The effect of electron correlation on the Politzer–Parr procedure for partitioning the electron density of an atom into core and valence regions is investigated by use of configuration interaction (CI) wave functions. Although the effect is generally small, substantial qualitative differences are observed between the 3, 4, and 6 electron cases. Analytical Hartree–Fock (HF) wave functions are used to reveal the trends in isoelectronic and isonuclear sequences. Correlated wave functions, which explicitly include the interelectronic distance, are used to study the effect of spin and electronic excitation on the populations and dimensions of the core and valence regions in the 1sns excited states of He.