CHEM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Ion, Atomic Radius, Linus Pauling
Document Summary
All orbitals with same n are degenerate. Multi electron atom: other forces to contend with (electron correlation problem) By coulomb"s law, each electron interacts separately with the nucleus. This means the spacial coordinates of the electrons are now related. Makes it impossible to solve the schr dinger equation. This is the potential energy that two repelling electrons have (in same subshell, usually) This is why the x, y, and z coordinates of electrons become coupled in multi-electron atoms. Swe uses pe, and now the pe of different electrons is coupled. We assume this is a small effect so we can invent a factor to approximate this effect. Net attraction must be the sum of the electron-nucleus attraction and the electron-electron repulsions. So, we pretend that electron-electron repulsions dampen the electron-nucleus attraction. Therefor, each electron has a reduced attraction to the nucleus based on how many other electrons there are in the subshell. This depends on n and l quantum numbers.
