Abstract:
The free energy of a Coulomb system of interacting electrons and nuclei is studied in the adiabatic approximation for nuclei with allowance for particle identity effects. An explicit expression is found for the effective short-range interaction potential of “identical” initial atoms in the self-consistent Hartree–Fock approximation for the electron subsystem and the first-order perturbation theory in a small parameter defined via the ratio of the atomic size to the mean distance between initial atoms.