DOE OSTI2021
The purpose of this work was to develop a Screened Hydrogenic Model (SHM) to accurately calculate the electron energies for light atoms and ions with up to ten electrons for atomic numbers up to 18. The total energy of an atom or ion was calculated with effective nuclear charges and screening parameters for each electron type (1s, 2s and 2p) within a specific electron configuration. Multiple energy states, centered at the total energy, were calculated for elec-tron configurations that have Russell Saunders coupling. The energy of each electron included its relativistic energy, EREL, but close overall agreement between the calculated and experimental energies of multi-electron configura-tions required that the one-electron expression for EREL be modified in a simple manner. In the present work, 98% of the 587 calculated energies for light atoms/ions have a relative error within ±0.1% of the corresponding experimental energies. The effective nuclear charges described in this work allow hydrogen-like wave functions to be defined for the electrons within a multi-electron configuration. The SHM, described in this work, is available for future calculations involving light atoms and ions.