Fine structure ofCa−,Sr−,Ba−, andRa−from the many-body theory calculation

Abstract

Atomic many-body theory methods are used to calculate the fine structure of negative ions formed by binding a p electron into an open shell, ${\mathrm{Ca}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$, ${\mathrm{Sr}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$, ${\mathrm{Ba}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$, and ${\mathrm{Ra}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$. This binding is due to a strong correlation potential acting between the electron and the neutral atom. Comparison with experimental data shows that the second order many-body perturbation theory calculation overestimates the correlation potential by 10% to 15%. Scaling factors are introduced in the correlation potential to reproduce experimental binding energies of the lower ${\mathrm{p}}_{1\mathrm{/}2}$ components. This procedure yields fine-structure intervals in excellent agreement with experiment for ${\mathrm{Ca}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$, ${\mathrm{Sr}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$, and ${\mathrm{Ba}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$, and allows us to predict that in ${\mathrm{Ra}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$ the ${\mathrm{p}}_{1\mathrm{/}2}$ state is bound by 100 meV, and ${\mathrm{p}}_{3\mathrm{/}2}$ is a resonance at 16 meV in the continuum.