Systematic studies on the electrostatic potential at the nucleus and the interelectronic interaction in the atoms and ions

Abstract

Data on the interelectronic interaction energy Vee and the electrostatic potential at the nucleus V0,A, obtained from Clementi’s near Hartree–Fock calculations on various atoms and ions, in the course of our previous work on Politzer’s k for atoms and ions, are systematically examined. It is found that both ΔV0A and ΔVee, the difference in V0A and Vee, respectively, between two successive members on an isoelectronic series of atoms, approach asymptotically to their limits characteristic to the isoelectronic series, when Z →∞. It is shown that this asymptotic behavior can be explained if and only if it is assumed that the screening effect, seen by an outer electron of a given atom, due to inner electrons within that atom, is not constant even for an isoelectronic atoms but depends upon Z or equivalently upon ionic charge.