Abstract
We present rough variational upper-bound estimates of some low-lying bound-state energy levels of two-electron systems, including , He, and , in magnetic fields above G, a regime that is relevant to recent astrophysical studies of pulsars. The simple trial wave functions that we use in the Rayleigh-Ritz calculations consist of single antisymmetrized products of single-particle orbitals which are predominantly magnetic in their spatial character. Most importantly, our results indicate that in the regime G the ion has at least one singlet and one triplet bound state; at 2 × G, e.g., the ionization energy of the triplet ground state of is greater than 12 eV. (The number of bound states of in this regime of may be much greater; moreover, the number of levels and their depths is expected to increase monotonically with .) These results appear to contradict a recent indication that there might not be any bound states of above G. For we also present the approximate leading asymptotic terms for the total (nonrelativistic) energies and corresponding ionization energies of some low-lying states of two-electron systems with nuclear charge .
- Received 22 April 1974
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.11.789
©1975 American Physical Society