One-electron pseudopotential investigation of the RbAr and FrAr van der Waals systems

Abstract

The potential energy curves of the ground state and many excited states of RbAr and FrAr van der Waals systems have been determined using a one-electron pseudopotential approach. The pseudopotential technique is used to replace the effect of the Rb+ and Fr+ cores and the electron-Ar interaction. In addition a core-core interaction is included. This has permitted to reduce the number of active electrons of the RbAr and FrAr systems to only one electron, the valence electron. This has led to use very large basis sets for Rb, Fr and Ar atoms. In this context, the potential energy curves of the ground and many excited states are performed at the SCF level. The core-core interactions for Rb+Ar and Fr+Ar are included using the CCSD(T) accurate potentials of Hickling et al. [H. Hickling, L. Viehland, D. Shepherd, P. Soldan, E. Lee and T. Wright, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 6 (2004) 4233]. In addition, the spectroscopic constants of these states are derived and compared with the available theoretical works. Such comparison for RbAr has shown a very good agreement for the ground and the first excited states. However, the FrAr system was not studied previously and its spectroscopic constants are presented here for the first time.