Electric dipole and quadrupole contributions to valence electron binding in a charge-screening environment

We make a multipole expansion of the atomic/molecular electrostatic charge distribution as seen by the valence electron up to the quadrupole term. The Tridiagonal Representation Approach (TRA) is used to obtain an exact bound state solution associated with an effective quadrupole moment and assuming that the electron-molecule interaction is screened by suborbital electrons. We show that the number of states available for binding the electron is finite forcing an energy jump in its transition to the continuum that could be detected experimentally in some favorable settings. We expect that our solution gives an alternative, viable and simple description of the binding of valence electron(s) in atoms/molecules with electric dipole and quadrupole moments. We also ascertain that our model implies that a pure quadrupole-bound anion cannot exist in such a charge-screening environment.Comment: 14 pages, 1 tabl

Infinite potential well with a sinusoidal bottom

We construct a tridiagonal matrix representation of the wave operator that maps the wave equation into a three-term recursion relation for the expansion coefficients of the wavefunction. Finding a solution of the recursion relation is equivalent to solving the original problem. Consequently, a larger class of solvable potentials is obtained. The usual diagonal representation constraint results in a reduction to the conventional class of solvable potentials. To exhibit the power of this approach, we give an exact solution for the infinite potential well with sinusoidal bottom.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table Details will be published in Journal of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 49, Issue 8 (August 2008

Relativistic Double Barrier Problem with Three Sub-Barrier Transmission Resonance Regions

We obtain exact scattering solutions of the Dirac equation in 1+1 dimensions for a double square barrier vector potential. The potential floor between the two barriers is higher than 2mc^2 whereas the top of the barriers is at least 2mc^2 above the floor. The relativistic version of the conventional double barrier transmission resonance is obtained for energies within + or - mc^2 from the height of the barriers. However, we also find two more (sub-barrier) transmission resonance regions below the conventional one. Both are located within the two Klein energy zones and characterized by resonances that are broader than the conventional ones.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, one table (animations could be obtained from first author

The Dirac-Coulomb Problem: a mathematical revisit

We obtain a symmetric tridiagonal matrix representation of the Dirac-Coulomb operator in a suitable complete square integrable basis. Orthogonal polynomials techniques along with Darboux method are used to obtain the bound states energy spectrum, the relativistic scattering amplitudes and phase shifts from the asymptotic behavior of the polynomial solutions associated with the resulting three-term recursion relation.Comment: 8 page