Spectroscopic dissociation energies of diatomic alkaline earth oxides

Numerical procedures are employed to determine uncoupled hartree-Fock polarizabilities α₀ for members of the Ne, Mg and Ar isoelectronic sequences. For each system the first-order correction (α₁) to the polarizability is evaluated and it is found that both α₀ + α₁ and the ‘geometric approximation’ α₀/(1 - α₁/α₀) are generally in accord with polarizabilities determined from the fully coupled Hartree-Fock scheme. It is concluded that, as for smaller systems, this approach provides an economical means of obtaining a satisfactory approximation to the coupled Hartree-Fock polarizability of an atom.