THOMAS-FERMI THEORY

 Elliott H. Lieb 

 

Departments of Mathematics and PhysicsPrinceton University

Sometimes called the ‘statistical theory’, it was invented byL. H. Thomas[TH] and E. Fermi[EF], shortly afterSchr ̈odinger invented his quantum-mechanical waveequation, in order to approximately describe theelec-tron density,ρ(x),x∈R3, and theground stateenergy,E(N) for a large atom or molecule with alarge number,N, of electrons. Schr ̈odinger’s equa-tion, which would give the exact density and energy,cannot be easily handled whenNis large.

 

 https://arxiv.org/pdf/math-ph/0003040.pdf