Group of symmetry of the periodic system of chemical elements

Abstract

The concurrence of the group of symmetry of the periodic system of elements with the group of dynamical symmetry of a hydrogenlike atom is employed in the theoretical investigation of atoms. The character of the degeneracy of the eigenvalues of a hydrogenlike atom Hamiltonian, without changing its eigenfunctions, was changed by introducing into this Hamiltonian a term which violates the symmetry in relation to transformations from the subgroup O(4) of the group SO(4, 2). In consequence, it was realized that such “reorganization” of the states of a hydrogenlike atom, which form a representation of the group SO(4, 2), effects the splitting of this representation into finite-dimensional multiplets, first of which are in full agreement with the experimentally observable composition of electron shells of atoms, and retains the physical meaning of quantum numbers that define electron states. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 72: 499–508, 1999