The spin-orbit interaction

Because the spin-orbit interaction is anisotropic (there is a directional dependence of the view each electron has of the relevant orbitals), the intersystem crossing rates from. S to each triplet level are different. 

In this section, the spin-orbit interaction is treated in the Breit-Pauli [13,24—26] approximation and incoi porated into the Hamiltonian using quasidegenerate perturbation theory [27]. This approach, which is described in [8], is commonly used in nuclear dynamics and is adequate for molecules containing only atoms with atomic numbers no larger than that of Kr. 

In the nonrelativistic case much has been, and continues to be, learned about the outcome of nonadiabatic processes from the locus and topography of seams of conical intersection. It will now be possible to describe nonadiabatic processes driven by conical intersections, for which the spin-orbit interaction cannot be neglected, on the same footing that has been so useful in the nonrelativistic case. This fully adiabatic approach offers both conceptual and potential computational... 

The Dirac equation automatically includes effects due to electron spin, while this must be introduced in a more or less ad hoc fashion in the Schrodinger equation (the Pauli principle). Furthermore, once the spin-orbit interaction is included, the total electron spin is no longer a good quantum number, an orbital no longer contains an integer number of a and /) spin functions. The proper quantum number is now the total angular momentum obtained by vector addition of the orbital and spin moments. 

The effect of the spin-orbit interaction term on the total energy is easily shown to be small. The angular momenta L and S are each on the order of h and the distance r is of the order of the radius ao of the first Bohr orbit. If we also neglect the small difference between the electronic mass We and the reduced mass the spin-orbit energy is of the order of... 

AiiEohc ntgcao 137.036 Thus, the spin-orbit interaction energy is about 5 X 10 times smaller than 1 11-... 

Since the spin-orbit interaction energy is small, the solution of equations (7.43) to obtain E is most easily accomplished by means of perturbation theory, a technique which is presented in Chapter 9. The evaluation of E is left as a problem at the end of Chapter 9. 

Using first-order perturbation theory, show that the spin-orbit interaction energy for a hydrogen atom is given by... 

Apart from d- and 4f-based magnetic systems, the physical properties of actinides can be classified to be intermediate between the lanthanides and d-electron metals. 5f-electron states form bands whose width lies in between those of d- and 4f-electron states. On the other hand, the spin-orbit interaction increases as a function of atomic number and is the largest for actinides. Therefore, one can see direct similarity between the light actinides, up to plutonium, and the transition metals on one side, and the heavy actinides and 4f elements on the other side. In general, the presence or absence of magnetic order in actinides depends on the shortest distance between 5f atoms (Hill limit). 

For n> 7, the spin-orbit interaction stabilizes the maximal total momentum in the ground state, / = L + S [35]. Depending on the character of the splitting of the ground/-multiplet, the following situations may occur ... 

The spin-orbit interaction is also called spin-orbit effect or spin-orbit coupling, which is one cause of magnetocrystalline anisotropy. SOC, the intrinsic interaction between a particle spin and its motion, is responsible for various important phenomena, ranging from atomic fine structure to topological condensed matter physics. SOC plays a major role in many important condensed matter phenomena and applications, including spin and anomalous Hall effects, topological insulators, spintronics, spin quantum computation, and so on. 

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