Metallic bonding due to correlations: A quantum chemical ab-initio calculation of the cohesive energy of mercury

Solid mercury in the rhombohedral structure is unbound within the self-consistent field (Hartree-Fock) approximation. The metallic binding is entirely due to electronic correlations. We determine the cohesive energy of solid mercury within an ab-initio many-body expansion for the correlation part. Electronic correlations in the $5d$ shell contribute about half to the cohesive energy. Relativistic effects are found to be very important. Very good agreement with the experimental value is obtained.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Discrete behavior of Seshadri constants on surfaces

Working over C, we show that, apart possibly from a unique limit point, the possible values of multi-point Seshadri constant for general points on smooth projective surfaces form a discrete set. In addition to its theoretical interest, this result is of practical value, which we demonstrate by giving significantly improved explicit lower bounds for Seshadri constants on P^2 and new results about ample divisors on blow ups of P^2 at general points.Comment: 14 pages, to appear in J. Pure App. Algebr