The diatomic Hartree model at dissociation

Abstract

Abstract We study the Hartree model for two electrons with spin, living in the two-dimensional or three-dimensional space with Coulomb interactions and submitted to the potential induced by two nuclei of charge +1. In the limit where the nuclei move away from each other, we show that the two lowest eigenfunctions of the mean-field Hamiltonian are asymptotically given by an even, respectively odd, superposition of the minimiser associated with the corresponding Hartree one nucleus model. We then give upper and lower bounds on the exponentially small gap between the first two eigenvalues, due to (nonlinear) quantum tunneling.