Mean field phase diagrams for one-electron molecules

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We describe a simple model for symmetry breaking of electronic structure configurations of one-electron systems. This model involves generalizing the problem to D-dimensional space and finding the solution at , a semiclassical limit which can be solved exactly. The large-D limit model reduces the problem to a variational calculation which is equivalent to mean-field theories of critical phenomena in statistical mechanics. We show that symmetry breaking of electronic structure configurations can be described as standard phase transitions. Rich phase diagrams with multicritical points are reported for both linear and planar one-electron systems.