A refined Born approximation

The Born-Oppenheimer Approximation

where R is the set of nuclear coordinates and r is the set of electronic coordinates. If spin-orbit effects are important, they can be added through a spin-orbit operator Ĥso. Unfortunately, the V̂eN(r,R) term prevents us from separating Ĥ into nuclear and electronic parts, which would allow us to write the molecular wavefunction as a product of nuclear and electronic terms, Ψ(r,R) = Ψ(r)χ(R). W...

Time Domain Born Approximation

The time domain Born approximation for ultrasonic scattering from volume flaws in an elastic medium is described. Results are given both for the direct and the inverse problem. The time domain picture leads to simple intuitive formulas which we illustrate by means of several simple examples. Particular emphasis is given to the front surface echo and its use in reconstructing the properties of t...

The Time-dependent Born-oppenheimer Approximation

We explain why the conventional argument for deriving the time-dependent Born-Oppenheimer approximation is incomplete and review recent mathematical results, which clarify the situation and at the same time provide a systematic scheme for higher order corrections. We also present a new elementary derivation of the correct second-order time-dependent Born-Oppenheimer approximation and discuss as...

How good is the born-oppenheimer approximation?

Molecular scattering and Born-Oppenheimer approximation

In this paper, we study the scattering wave operators for a diatomic molecules by using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Assuming that the ratio h between the electronic and nuclear masses is small, we construct adiabatic wave operators that, under some non trapping conditions, approximate the two-cluster wave operators up to any powers of the parameter h.