Core electrons valence theory

The first reliable energy band theories were based on a powerfiil approximation, call the pseudopotential approximation. Within this approximation, the all-electron potential corresponding to interaction of a valence electron with the iimer, core electrons and the nucleus is replaced by a pseudopotential. The pseudopotential reproduces only the properties of the outer electrons. There are rigorous theorems such as the Phillips-Kleinman cancellation theorem that can be used to justify the pseudopotential model [2, 3, 26]. The Phillips-Kleimnan cancellation theorem states that the orthogonality requirement of the valence states to the core states can be described by an effective repulsive... 

Another approach is spin-coupled valence bond theory, which divides the electrons into two sets core electrons, which are described by doubly occupied orthogonal orbitals, and active electrons, which occupy singly occupied non-orthogonal orbitals. Both types of orbital are expressed in the usual way as a linear combination of basis functions. The overall wavefunction is completed by two spin fimctions one that describes the coupling of the spins of the core electrons and one that deals with the active electrons. The choice of spin function for these active electrons is a key component of the theory [Gerratt ef al. 1997]. One of the distinctive features of this theory is that a considerable amount of chemically significant electronic correlation is incorporated into the wavefunction, giving an accuracy comparable to CASSCF. An additional benefit is that the orbitals tend to be... 

The simplest, and perhaps the most important, information derived from photoelectron spectra is the ionization energies for valence and core electrons. Before the development of photoelectron spectroscopy very few of these were known, especially for polyatomic molecules. For core electrons ionization energies were previously unobtainable and illustrate the extent to which core orbitals differ from the pure atomic orbitals pictured in simple valence theory. 

We have seen above how X-ray photons may eject an electron from the core orbitals of an atom, whether it is free or part of a molecule. So far, in all aspects of valence theory of molecules that we have considered, the core electrons have been assumed to be in orbitals which are unchanged from the AOs of the corresponding atoms. XPS demonstrates that this is almost, but not quite, true. 

The basic idea of the pseudopotential theory is to replace the strong electron-ion potential by a much weaker potential - a pseudopotential that can describe the salient features of the valence electrons which determine most physical properties of molecules to a much greater extent than the core electrons do. Within the pseudopotential approximation, the core electrons are totally ignored and only the behaviour of the valence electrons outside the core region is considered as important and is described as accurately as possible [54]. Thus the core electrons and the strong ionic potential are replaced by a much weaker pseudopotential which acts on the associated valence pseudo wave functions rather than the real valence wave functions (p ). As... 

In the PP theory, the valence electron wave function is composed of two parts. The main part is the pseudo-wave function describing a relatively smooth-varying behavior of the electron. The second part describes a spatially rapid oscillation of the valence electron near the atomic core. This atomic-electron-like behavior is due to the fact that, passing the vicinity of an atom, the valence electron recalls its native outermost atomic orbitals under a relatively stronger atomic potential near the core. Quantum mechanically the situation corresponds to the fact that the valence electronic state should be orthogonal to the inner-core electronic states. The second part describes this CO. The CO terms explicitly contain the information of atomic position and atomic core orbitals. 

The theory assumes that the nuclei stay fixed on their lattice sites surrounded by the inner or core electrons whilst the outer or valence electrons travel freely through the solid. If we ignore the cores then the quantum mechanical description of the outer electrons becomes very simple. Taking just one of these electrons the problem becomes the well-known one of the particle in a box. We start by considering an electron in a one-dimensional solid. 

The energy states of gaseous atoms split because of the overlap between electron clouds. Obviously, therefore, atoms must come much closer before the clouds of the core electrons begin to overlap compared with the distance at which the clouds of outer (or valence) electrons overlap (Fig. 6.119). Hence, at the equilibrium interatomic distances, the energy levels of the core electrons (in contrast to the valence electrons) do not show any band structure and therefore will be neglected in the following discussion. This simplified picture of the band theory of solids will now be used to explain the differences in conductivity of metals, semiconductors, and insulators. 

It was Hellmann (1935) who first proposed a rather radical solution to this problem -replace the electrons with analytical functions that would reasonably accurately, and much more efficiently, represent the combined nuclear-electronic core to the remaining electrons. Such functions are referred to as effective core potentials (ECPs). In a sense, we have already seen ECPs in a very crude form in semiempirical MO theory, where, since only valence electrons are treated, the ECP is a nuclear point charge reduced in magnitude by the number of core electrons. 

Clearly any attempt to base FeK on such molecularly defined cores defeats the aims of pseudopotential theory. However, the approximate invariance of atomic cores to molecule formation implies that, of the total of Na electrons which could be associated with the centre A in an atomic calculation, nx are core electrons and n K will contribute to the molecular valence set. Thus we can define a one-centred Fock operator ... 

His early works on adiabatic separation of valence electrons from fast moving core electrons in atoms attracted much attention a few years later, when the time came for the theory of pseudopotentials. These papers are still being referred to, more than forty years after their publication. 

The relaxation of the structure in the KMC-DR method was done using an approach based on the density functional theory and linear combination of atomic orbitals implemented in the Siesta code [97]. The minimum basis set of localized numerical orbitals of Sankey type [98] was used for all atoms except silicon atoms near the interface, for which polarization functions were added to improve the description of the SiOx layer. The core electrons were replaced with norm-conserving Troullier-Martins pseudopotentials [99] (Zr atoms also include 4p electrons in the valence shell). Calculations were done in the local density approximation (LDA) of DFT. The grid in the real space for the calculation of matrix elements has an equivalent cutoff energy of 60 Ry. The standard diagonalization scheme with Pulay mixing was used to get a self-consistent solution. In the framework of the KMC-DR method, it is not necessary to perform an accurate optimization of the structure, since structure relaxation is performed many times. 

Many-body perturbation theory in difference between the exact and Hartree-Fock Hamiltonians (perturbation U = H — Hhf) is used to calculate the effective Hamiltonian for valence electrons. This effective Hamiltonian includes correlations between the valence and core electrons which result in... 

Absorption of the X-ray makes two particles in the solid the hole in the core level and the extra electron in the conduction band. After they are created, the hole and the electron can interact with each other, which is an exciton process. Many-body corrections to the one-electron picture, including relaxation of the valence electrons in response to the core-hole and excited-electron-core-hole interaction, alter the one-electron picture and play a role in some parts of the absorption spectrum. Mahan (179-181) has predicted enhanced absorption to occur over and above that of the one-electron theory near an edge on the basis of core-hole-electron interaction. Contributions of many-body effects are usually invoked in case unambiguous discrepancies between experiment and the one-electron model theory cannot be explained otherwise. Final-state effects may considerably alter the position and strength of features associated with the band structure. 

The early 3d metals (Sc, Ti, V, and also Ca) are generally considered to be characterized by weak electron correlation in their ground states. Although band-structure theory seems appropriate to describe their excitation spectra, the Ln iii near-edge structures show strong deviations from the prediction of single-particle theory. This is improved by taking into account core-hole-valence electron atomic-like interactions as well as the band structure (5/5). Other XAES spectra of metals are discussed in Section III,B,1. 

For the core-extensive theories (i.e., with the feature (al)), there must be an explicit cluster expansion structure with respect to the core electrons, and no such cluster expansion maintained for the valence electrons. The wave-operator ft should have then either of the following forms... 

The data analysis chosen by these authors departs from that used by Mogensen and others [17, 18], who fit each ID angular correlation curve to a set of Gaussian functions. The minimum number of Gaussians is used to achieve a good fit, and the width of each is optimized. The momentum components of each 7-ray spectrum are then interpreted in terms of annihilation of core vs. valence electrons without appeal to a preconceived chemical model. The experiment-theory connection can be made if one has an adequate wave function in hand, for then the Doppler profiles or angular correlation curves can be calculated and compared to those measured. 

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