Start Date

2022

Description

There are three aspects of the electronic structure of atoms that confront the university student. All three arise in Hartree-Fock (HF) theory, which is foundational to understanding the periodic table. These aspects are: 1) Electron probability distributions of oneelectron atomic orbitals. 2) One-electron orbital energies. 3) How 1) and 2) relate to the total atomic energy and the total electron probability distribution. The goal of our work is to build a website that will employ a long-neglected model, first introduced by Slater and Zener (SZ). HF theory requires a knowledge of calculus, differential equations, and the ability to solve many equations simultaneously. On the other hand, the newly constructed (2015-2020) Slater-Zener model requires only a knowledge of algebra. It can capture 95%-98% of the experimental atomic ionization energy, which is often used as a criterion of model accuracy

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Jan 1st, 12:00 AM

Visualizing the Electronic Structure of Atoms

There are three aspects of the electronic structure of atoms that confront the university student. All three arise in Hartree-Fock (HF) theory, which is foundational to understanding the periodic table. These aspects are: 1) Electron probability distributions of oneelectron atomic orbitals. 2) One-electron orbital energies. 3) How 1) and 2) relate to the total atomic energy and the total electron probability distribution. The goal of our work is to build a website that will employ a long-neglected model, first introduced by Slater and Zener (SZ). HF theory requires a knowledge of calculus, differential equations, and the ability to solve many equations simultaneously. On the other hand, the newly constructed (2015-2020) Slater-Zener model requires only a knowledge of algebra. It can capture 95%-98% of the experimental atomic ionization energy, which is often used as a criterion of model accuracy