BERKELEY, CA -- For over half a century, theorists have tried and failed =
to
provide a complete solution to scattering in a quantum system of three
charged particles, one of the most fundamental phenomena in atomic physic=
s.
Such interactions are everywhere; ionization by electron impact, for
example, is responsible for the glow of fluorescent lights and for the io=
n
beams that engrave silicon chips.
Now, collaborators at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley Nation=
al
Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of
California at Davis have used supercomputers to obtain a complete solutio=
n
of the ionization of a hydrogen atom by collision with an electron, the
simplest nontrivial example of the problem's last unsolved component. The=
y
report their findings in the 24 December, 1999, issue of Science magazine.
Their breakthrough employs a mathematical transformation of the Schr=F6di=
nger
wave equation that makes it possible to treat the outgoing particles not =
as
if their wave functions extend to infinity -- as they must be treated
conventionally -- but instead as if they simply vanish at large distances
from the nucleus.
<SNIP>
ttyl
-Steve
steve@primeline.net | ICQ: 5113616
Digital Fusion: http://www.digitalfusion.on.ca
Fiero Project: http://www.digitalfusion.on.ca/fiero
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