MEAN-FIELD PHASE-DIAGRAMS FOR ONE-ELECTRON MOLECULES

We describe a simple model for symmetry breaking of electronic structu re configurations of one-electron,systems, This model involves general izing the problem to D-dimensional space and finding the solution at D --> infinity, a semiclassical limit which can be solved exactly. The large-D limit model reduces the problem to a variational calculation w hich is equivalent to mean-field theories of critical phenomena in sta tistical mechanics. We show that symmetry breaking of electronic struc ture configurations can be described as standard phase transitions. Ri ch phase diagrams with multicritical points are reported for both line ar and planar one-electron systems.