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On the expansion of a Coulomb potential in spherical harmonics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

B. C. Carlson
Affiliation:
Clarendon LaboratoryOxford
G. S. Rushbrooke
Affiliation:
Clarendon LaboratoryOxford

Extract

The addition theorem for Legendre functions leads, as is well known, to a useful expansion formula of importance in the theory of electrostatic potentials,

or, in an alternative notation,

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1950

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References

Eyring, H., Walter, J. and Kimball, G. E., Quantum chemistry (New York, 1944), p. 371.Google Scholar

Hobson, E. W., The theory of spherical and ellipsoidal harmonics (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 90, 99.Google Scholar

§ Our is the same for all m as defined by Condon, E. U. and Shortley, G. H., The theory of atomic spectra (Cambridge, 1935), p. 52.Google Scholar

Terms up to an including R −6 are correctly given in Cartesian coordinates by Heller, R., J. Chem. Phys. 9 (1941), 156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Elsewhere the quadrupole term has often been written with one or more errors of sign.

Wigner, E., Gruppentheorie (Braunschweig, 1931), p. 206.Google Scholar Also Condon and Shortley, loc. cit. p. 75.

Hobson, E. W., loc. cit. §§ 83, 85, 88, 101 and 103.

Gatint, J. A., Philos. Trans. A, 228 (1929), 151.Google Scholar Gaunt's formula is written in notation very similar to ours by Condon and Shortley, loc. cit. p. 176. Our l 1, m 1, l 2, m 2, L are to be identified with their l, m, l′, m′, l″, and the integral on the left side of (16) is 1/√(2π) times the integral on the left side of their equation (11).