Potential curves for several electronic states of the MgHe, Mg+He, and Mg+2He van der Waals complexes

Theoretical study of the spin-orbit coupled molecular states of the Mg-He dimer

The primary objective of this study is to conduct precise ab initio calculations of the spin-orbit interaction between Mg and He atoms. Our investigation centers on identifying the first low-lying electronic states of the Mg-He molecule through high-level theoretical methods such as CCSD(T) and RCCSD(T) and SA-CASSCF/MRCI, while also integrating Davidson and BSSE corrections to refine our findings further. Additionally, we employ the state-interacting method to comprehensively account for the influence of spin-orbit coupling (SO) on molecular states. We carefully characterize the potential energy curves (PECs) of these molecular states by deriving crucial spectroscopic parameters including Re, De, Be and Te, which are then compared against data from prior studies. Moreover, our analysis extends to evaluating vibrational levels, radiative lifetimes, and transition dipole moments (TDMs), offering a comprehensive understanding of the system's dynamics. Notably, we locate the positions of satellite features within the absorption spectra of brown and white dwarfs. To validate the precision and reliability of our findings, extensive comparisons are made with both theoretical predictions and experimental observations, ensuring robustness and accuracy in our conclusions.

Theoretical Investigation of the Electronic Structure and Spectra of Mg(2+)He and Mg(+)He

The ground and many excited states of the Mg(+)He van der Waals molecular system have been explored using a one-electron pseudopotential approach. In this approach, effective potentials are used to consider the Mg(2+) core and the electron-He effects. Furthermore, a core-core interaction is included. This has reduced the number of active electrons of the Mg(+)He, to be considered in the calculation, to a single valence electron. This has permitted to use extended Gaussian basis sets for Mg and He. Therefore, the potentianl energy and dipole moments calculations are carried out at the Hartree-Fock level of theory, and the spin-orbit effect is included using a semiclassical approach. The core-core interaction for the Mg(2+)He ground state is included using accurate CCSD(T) calculations. The spectroscopic constants of the Mg(+)He electronic states are extracted and compared with the existing theoretical works, where very good agreement is observed. Moreover, the transition dipole function has been determined for a large and dense grid of internuclear distances including the spin-orbit effect.

Formation and properties of metal clusters isolated in helium droplets

The unique conditions forming atomic and molecular complexes and clusters using superfluid helium nanodroplets have opened up an innovative route for studying the physical and chemical properties of matter on the nanoscale. This review summarizes the specific characteristics of the formation of atomic clusters partly generated far from equilibrium in the helium environment. Special emphasis is on the optical response, electronic properties as well as dynamical processes which are mostly affected by the surrounding quantum matrix. Experiments include the optical induced response of isolated cluster systems in helium under quite different excitation conditions ranging from the linear regime up to the violent interaction with a strong laser field leading to Coulomb explosion and the generation of highly charged atomic fragments. The variety of results on the outstanding properties in the quantum size regime highlights the peculiar capabilities of helium nanodroplet isolation spectroscopy.

Interatomic decay of inner-valence-excited states in clusters

In an isolated atom, excitation of an inner valence electron above the outer valence subshell leads to creation of an autoionizing state. Recently, it has been demonstrated experimentally that in a cluster, the inner-valence-excited states can decay also by an interatomic mechanism which has been called resonant interatomic Coulombic decay (RICD). Here we show that RICD is indeed the leading but not the only possible interatomic decay mode of the inner-valence excitations in clusters. Using Ne (2s-->3p) excitation in MgNe cluster as an example, we explore the possible decay mechanisms and draw conclusions on their relative importance and on the nature of the corresponding decay products.