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Brian T Sutcliffe

Publications and source records attributed to Brian T Sutcliffe.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Adiabatic Jacobi corrections for H2+-like systems.

The Coulomb three-body problem in Jacobi coordinates was solved by treating the distance of the particles having equal charge as a parameter. This method allows computation of electronic energies with finite nuclear masses while maintaining the notion of a potential energy curve. The rotationless ground-state electronic and the so-called adiabatic Jacobi correction (AJC) energies are presented for H2+, D2+, and HD+ at fixed internuclear separations. The AJCs are defined as the difference between the results obtained from calculations using proper finite and infinite nuclear masses. Except at the united atom limit, the AJCs are smaller than the traditional first-order diagonal Born-Oppenheimer corrections. Expectation values of proton-electron, p-e, and deuteron-electron, d-e, distances for HD+ have been computed as a function of internuclear separation. Similarly to the fully nonadiabatic approach, the present method is able to follow the symmetry breaking in HD+. Exact and approximate analytical and numerical results are given for counterfactual systems as well. In these cases changes are allowed for the values of the electron rest mass or the elementary charge, as well as for the mass or charge of the unique particle (electron).

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Molecular structure calculations without clamping the nuclei.

A number of recent papers have considered ways in which molecular structure may be calculated when both the electrons and the nuclei are treated from the outset as quantum particles. This is in contrast to the conventional approach in which the nuclei initially have their positions fixed and so merely provide a potential for electronic motion. The usual approach is generally assumed to be justified by the 1927 work of Born and Oppenheimer. In this paper we discuss what precisely might be anticipated in the way of molecular structure from a mathematical consideration of the spectral properties of the full Coulomb Hamiltonian, to what extent the very idea of molecular structure might be dependent upon treating the nuclei simply as providing a potential and the extent to which the work of Born and Oppenheimer can be used to support this position.

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