Universality in the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker model of atoms and molecules

We study the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker theory of atoms and molecules. The main result is to prove universality of the structure of very large atoms and molecules, i.e., proving that the structure converges as the nuclear charges go to infinity. Furthermore we uniquely characterize the limit density as the solution to a renormalized TFW-equation. This is achieved by characterizing the strong singularities of solutions to the non-linear TFW-system.Supported by a Danish Research Academy Fellowship and U.S. National Science Foundation grant PHY-85-15288-A03