Theoretical study of atoms by the electronic kinetic energy density and stress tensor density

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of atomic electronic structures using local quantum field theoretic quantities, revealing periodic patterns and characterizing atomic features through kinetic energy and stress tensor densities.

Contribution

It introduces the use of electronic kinetic energy density and stress tensor density to analyze atomic structures, connecting quantum field theory concepts with atomic physics.

Findings

Electronic interfaces exhibit periodic size patterns.

Atomic structures are characterized by stress tensor densities.

Electronic interfaces are comparable to atomic and ionic radii.

Abstract

We analyze the electronic structure of atoms in the first, second and third periods using the electronic kinetic energy density and stress tensor density, which are local quantities motivated by quantum field theoretic consideration, specifically the rigged quantum electrodynamics. We compute the zero surfaces of the electronic kinetic energy density, which we call the electronic interfaces, of the atoms. We find that their sizes exhibit clear periodicity and are comparable to the conventional atomic and ionic radii. We also compute the electronic stress tensor density and its divergence, tension density, of the atoms, and discuss how their electronic structures are characterized by them.