Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
We investigate the ground state properties of large atoms and quantum dots described by a d-dimensional N-body Hamiltonian of confinement ZV. In atoms, d = 3 and V is the Coulomb interaction; in dots, d = 2 and V is phenomenologically determined. We express the grand-canonical partition function in a path integral approach, and evaluate its expansion in Z-1. The problem can be seen as that of field theory possessing a saddle point. This saddle point results in a mean-field contribution to the energy, while the fluctuations result in the correlation energy. The mean-field contribution to the energy is self-consistently determined by the Hartree potential and contains an exchange term. Its smooth contribution is evaluated by a semiclassical method, with ε = Z-1/d in the role of ℏ, while its oscillating contribution can be related to the periodic orbits in the corresponding classical Hamiltonian. In the case of atoms, the leading order in ε of the correlation energy contains a term in Z ln Z1/3, which is essential in reproducing the behaviour shown by reference values, and a term in Z. While we have evaluated the contribution to the Z-term provided by the leading fluctuation order, the numerical evaluation of the contributions provided by higher order fluctuations remains an open problem. The self-consistent contribution to the energy corresponds to the statistical atom, composed of Thomas-Fermi and its corrections, comprehensively analysed, including oscillations, by Schwinger and Englert. In the case of dots, the leading order in ε of the correlation energy is a universal contribution of order Z, which we obtain in closed form. We then determine the expansion in ε of the smooth contributions down to this correlation order. We apply the approach to dots of quadratic and quartic confinement, including the oscillating contribution in the case of a chaotic quartic confinement.
, ,