The potential energies of the Na** + He quasi-molecule

The special features of the behavior of the potential energy surfaces of the system comprising a highly excited A** atom and a neutral B atom with a filled electronic shell were thoroughly analyzed. This was done using the integral variant of theory combined with the generalized finite radius potential method correctly describing the scattering of a weakly bound electron by the B atom. The method allows P scattering to be taken into account. This scattering causes the additional splitting of potential energy surfaces into separate groups of interacting terms classified according to the projection m of the electron angular momentum l onto the quasimolecular axis. Calculations of the nl(^{2s + 1}Λ) state potential curves of the Na** + He quasi-molecule (n, l, and Λ are the principal quantum number, angular momentum, and its projection onto the molecular axis, and s is the spin of the system) were performed. The calculation results were compared to those obtained by other authors.