Hydrogen atoms and molecules in strong magnetic fields

Sammanfattning: Theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of the hydrogen atom H, the hydrogen molecular ion H+2, and the hydrogen molecule H2 in strong magnetic fields up to 108 T have been performed. For the atom H, the analytical structure of the wave function has been obtained. Benchmark energy eigenvalues for both low-lying and higher excited levels in magnetic fields from 0 to ~ 108 T have been calculated.A new computational method has been applied to the problem of H+2 in a parallel magnetic field. The obtained results have very high accuracy for magnetic fields of moderate strength and may be used as reference values in further studies.The ground state of H2 as a function of the magnetic field strength has been investigated. It was found that for magnetic fields between ≈ 4 x 104 T and ≈ 3 x 106 T the ground state of H2 is weakly bound, if at all, and a collection of hydrogen atoms at such conditions will behave like a non-ideal Bose gas with weak pair interaction. In addition, it was found that there exist two regions of the magnetic field strength where hydrogen may form bound metastable molecules.Application of the obtained results to the hydrogen-like excitons in semiconductors provided a probable explanation of some features of the excitonic spectrum observed in experiments with germanium placed in a magnetic field; A mechanism for light emission due to the formation of metastable biexcitonic molecules in laboratory magnetic fields is discussed and further experimental work is proposed.