Hydrogen-like atom spin-orbit coupling

For a hydrogen-like atom or ion the spin-orbit coupling constant i is expressed as... 

Considerations similar to those made about electric dipole moments apply to other one-electron properties, for instance the nuclear spin-spin coupling constants between non-bonded hydrogen atoms in molecules like methane. These quantities are approximately equal to zero in the simple molecular orbital theory, as it is easily proved by using equivalent orbitals corresponding to the CH bonds instead of the usual delocalized MO s (34). Actually, the nuclear spins of protons cannot interact wta the electrons, since a localized MO cannot be large on two hydrogens at the same time, and correlation should be primarily responsible for all coupling constants, except perhaps for those observed for directly bonded atoms (see Sec. 4). 

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