From chemistry-request@www.ccl.net  Fri Sep  4 02:32:32 1998
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From: Allen Adler <adler@hera.wku.edu>
To: chemistry@www.ccl.net
Subject: Aufbau irregularities (revised)
Message-Id: <E0zEpQ8-0004VU-00@hera.wku.edu>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 01:32:32 -0500




For reasons that have been abundantly pointed out to me, the isotope
effect can't make the changes I was asking for. On the other hand,
with positronium, one gets spectral lines that are exactly half those
of the hydrogen atom. In effect, this is accomplished by reducing
the mass of the nucleus to that of an electron.

Therefore, suppose that we could make exotic atoms whose nuclei are
perhaps based on other elementary particles, e.g. muons and/or positrons.
Maybe they would be very short lived, but it might still make sense to talk
about their electronic structure.

In such an atom, we could make the nuclear mass much closer to that of
the electrons.

Since this leaves the realm of experiment, at least for the present,
it becomes a question to be settled by ab initio computations: by making
the nuclear mass sufficiently small, but preserving the nuclear charge,
can we get the "irregularities" in the Aufbau process to disappear.

Allan Adler
adler@hera.wku.edu