Research Description:

Basis Functions for Atomic Scattering Problems

An important unresolved problem of atomic physics is the accurate theoretical treatment of atomic collisions at energies which cause multiple electrons to be ejected or moved into highly excited bound states. My research will concentrate on examination of the dominant physical effects of these collision systems using a non-traditional approach, generalizing interatom distances as a complex quantity (i.e. one that has real and imaginary components). Using such an approach, the energy and other descriptors of the system become complex, resulting in a useful generalization of complicated alternative reaction pathways.

A two-atom system with complex interatom distance can be modeled analytically, but such an ideal case hardly proves useful. The electron distribution of the one-electron hydrogen atom has been used as an initial approximation for descriptive calculations involving larger, more complex atoms. I believe the electron distributions of the two-atom, one electron system might serve as an initial approximation for multi-electron atomic collisional phenomena. The two-center case differs from the hydrogen atom in one important respect: the exact two-center distributions for complex interatom separation are far too complicated to serve as adequate first approximations. Additionally, one may find difficulty in visualizing such phenomena. I plan to approach this issue by finding simple functional forms which give accurate qualitative representations of the exact distributions. Furthermore, once such functional forms are available, I plan to test them on prototype atomic collisions.