Hannover 2003 – scientific programme

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MP: Theoretische und Mathematische Grundlagen der Physik

MP II: HV II

MP II.1: Invited Talk

Monday, March 24, 2003, 11:45–12:30, F309

The periodicity of the periodic table - a mathematician’s perspective — •Jan Philip Solovej — University of Copenhagen

As a purely theoretical (mathematical) question one may ask what the periodic table would look like if it extended to arbitrarily large atomic numbers. Would it remain "periodic"’? Put differently, could arbitrarily large atoms have essentially equal chemical properties? I will present a renormalized picture of large atoms which can be rigorously justified in Hartree-Fock theory and which establishes the universal structure of large atoms. This renormalized picture is based on the simple Thomas-Fermi model. I shall also present calculations that show that this atomic picture gives fairly good predictions for the structure of physical atoms.