Accurate methods that can describe the behavior of molecules very strong magnetic fields

What is it about?

The article is about very accurate quantum-chemical methods that enable the study of atoms and molecules in very strong magnetic fields, even stronger than anything we can produce on Earth. We describe the theory and the implementation of such methods in a computer program. We also show applications how strong fields lead to changes in properties that would change the chemistry and the spectroscopic signatures of these atoms and molecules.

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Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Over 90% of stars that die become so-called white dwarf stars. On such stars one finds magnetic fields that are much larger than the ones we can obtain on Earth. Concretely, they can be as strong as 100000 Tesla. However, we do get spectra, i.e., a fingerprint signatures from the light coming from the atmosphere of the stars, that can in principle tell us which atoms and molecules are to be found there and how large their magnetic field is. These spectra are recorded with Earth-would telescopes or space telescopes like Hubble or James Webb. Because there is no experiment that we could do on Earth to get a spectrum of known composition for comparison, we can however not interpret the obtained spectra. Only with the help of quantum-chemical methods of high accuracy this interpretation (assignment) is possible. In this article, we have formulated such quantum-chemical methods that can predict what spectra of various atoms or molecules would look like in strong magnetic fields. They hence enable the assignment of spectra from white dwarf stars and hence gives us the chance to learn about the universe, white dwarfs and the life cycle of stars in general. The use of these methods has indeed lead to the assignment of a spectrum of a white dwarf star with metals in the atmosphere.

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