Core-induced chaos in diamagnetic lithium

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Abstract
We present a theoretical study of the connections between quantum and classical descriptions of lithium in a magnetic field. We find that the localized nature of the ionic core causes a breakdown in the generic connections between energy-level statistics and classical motion: classical chaos is observed in a regime where the energy-level distribution is Poissonian. The breakdown arises because the source of chaos is localized on a node of the odd-parity wave function. In addition, we employ the principles of periodic-orbit theory to identify classical trajectories with spectral periodicities. We identify a series of core-scattered recurrences in the Fourier transform of the spectrum and quantitatively describe them by a simple model. Finally, we introduce recurrence counting and demonstrate how it can help relate the classical dynamics to the quantum spectrum. © 1996 The American Physical Society.