Many-body atomic potentials in Thomas-Fermi theory

Abstract

Many-body atomic potentials, ε, are functions of the nuclear coordinates, and are defined by differences of ground state energies, E, e.g., ε(1, 2) ≡ E(1, 2) - E(1) - E(2). We prove that in Thomas-Fermi theory the n-body potential always has the sign (-1)n for all co-ordinates. We also prove that the remainder in the expansion of the total energy E in terms of the ε's, when truncated at the n-body terms, has the sign (-1)n+1. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York.