The effect of relativity on atomic wave functions

Abstract

Little attention appears to have been paid to the effect of relativity on atomic wave functions since White studied the matter in 1931. We present graphs and tables to show the order of magnitude of corrections to the hydrogenic charge distributions for Z = 80, and study the systematic correction to various hydrogenic expectation values as a function of atomic number. We discuss the use of our results to predict relativistic expectation values in complex atoms in the light of recent work by Garstang and Mayers.