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
Recommended Citation
Bouman, Ryan; Baldacci, Henry; and DeKock, Roger, "Visualizing the Electronic Structure of Atoms" (2022). Summer Research. 4.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/summer_research/2022/Posters/4
Included in
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