We analyzed radial and angular correlations of 50 ${2l2l}^{\prime }{3l}^{″}$ triply excited states of atoms. Using hyperspherical coordinates, we examined channel wave functions in the body-fixed frame to identify elementary normal modes of the correlated motion of the three electrons. For these states, we showed that the bending vibrational modes characterizing the angular correlations are the same as those in ${2l2l}^{\prime }{2l}^{″}$ and ${3l3l}^{\prime }{3l}^{″}$ intrashell states, but additional “$+$” or “$-$” quantum numbers are needed to distinguish the symmetric or antisymmetric stretch of the outer electron with respect to the two inner ones for the ${2l2l}^{\prime }{3l}^{″}$ intershell states.

• Received 9 September 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.67.022511