Beyond Periodic Orbits: An Example in Nonhydrogenic Atoms

Abstract

The spectrum of hydrogen in a magnetic field is a paradigm of quantum chaos and may be analyzed accurately by periodic-orbit-type theories. In nonhydrogenic atoms, the core induces pure quantum effects, especially additional spectral modulations, which cannot be analyzed reliably in terms of classical orbits and their stability parameters. Provided core-scattered waves are included consistently, core-scattered modulations as well as corrected amplitudes for primitive orbits are in excellent agreement with quantum results. We consider whether these systems correspond to quantum chaos.