Stephen Wilson

B.L. Gyorffy

I.P. Grant

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the effects of relativity in atoms, molecules and solids. On the one hand, this can be seen as result of the growing awareness of the importance of relativity in describing the properties of heavy atoms and systems containing them. This has been fueled by the inadequacy of physical models which either neglect relativity or which treat it as a small perturbation. On the other hand, it is dependent upon the technological developments which have resulted in computers powerful enough to make calculations on heavy atoms and on systems containing heavy atoms meaningful. Vector processing and, more recently, parallel processing techniques are playing an increasingly vital role in rendering the algorithms which arise in relativistic studies tractable. This has been exemplified in atomic structure theory, where the dominant role of the central nuclear charge simplifies the problem enough to permit some prediction to be made with high precision, especially for the highly ionized atoms of importance in plasma physics and in laser confinement studies. Today's sophisticated physical models of the atom derived from quantum electrodynamics would be intractable without recourse to modern computational machinery. Relativistic atomic structure calculations have a history dating from the early attempts of Swirles in the mid 1930's but continue to provide one of the primary test beds of modern theoretical physics.

The Effects of Relativity in Atoms, Molecules, and the Solid State

P. Phariseau

We present here the transcripts of lectures and talks which were delivered at the NATO ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE "Electrons in Disordered Hetals and at ~~etallic Surfaces" held at the State University of Ghent, Belgium between August 28 and September 9, 1978. The aim of these lectures was to highlight some of the current progress in our understanding of the degenerate electron 'liquid' in an external field which is neither uniform nor periodic. This theme brought together such topics as the electronic structure at metallic surfaces and in random metallic alloys, liquid metals and metallic glasses. As is the case in connection with infinite order ed crystals, the central issues to be discussed were the nature of the electronic spectra, the stability of the various phases and the occurrence of such phenomena as magnetism and supercon ductivity. In the theoretical lectures the emphasis was on detailed rea listic calculations based, more or less, on the density functional approach to the problem of the inhomogeneous electron liquid. How ever, where such calculations were not available, as in the case of magnetism in random alloys and that of metallic glasses, sim pler phenomenological models were used. The theoretical discussions were balanced by reviews of the most promising experimental techniques. Here the stress was on results and their relevance to the fundamental theory. lforeover, the attention had centered on those experiments which probe the electronic structure in the greatest detail.

B.L. Gyorffy

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