Theoretical investigation of boundary contours of ground-state atoms in uniform electric fields

Abstract

The boundary contours were investigated for first 54 ground-state atoms of the periodic table when they are in uniform electric fields of strengths 10⁶, 10⁷ and 10⁸ V/m. The atomic characteristic boundary model in combination with an ab-initio method was employed. Some regularities of the deformation of atoms, ΔR, in above electric fields are revealed. Furthermore, atomic polarisabilities of the first 54 elements of the periodic table are shown to correlate strongly with the mean variation rate of atomic radial size divided by the strength of the electric field F, , which provides a predictive method of calculating atomic polarisabilities of 54 atoms.

Keywords:

• electric field
• atomic boundary contours
• the mean variation rate of atomic radial sizes
• atomic polarisability

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to Prof E. R. Davidson for providing us the MELD package and other kind help. Also, we would like to give great thanks to the editor and reviewers for their constructive comments and advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplementary Materials associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00268976.2015.1063728.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 21133005]; the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 21473083]; Liaoning Excellent Talents in University LNET [grant number LJQ2013111]; and Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning [grant number 2014020150].