Nodal surfaces and interdimensional degeneracies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the topology and properties of the nodes (i.e. the zeros of the wave function) in electronic systems. Using the "electrons on a sphere" model, we study the nodes of two-, three- and four-electron systems in various ferromagnetic configurations ($sp$, $p^2$, $sd$, $pd$, $p^3$, $sp^2$ and $sp^3$). In some particular cases ($sp$, $p^2$, $sd$, $pd$ and $p^3$), we rigorously prove that the non-interacting wave function has the same nodes as the exact (yet unknown) wave function. The number of atomic and molecular systems for which the exact nodes are known analytically is very limited and we show here that this peculiar feature can be attributed to interdimensional degeneracies. Although we have not been able to prove it rigorously, we conjecture that the nodes of the non-interacting wave function for the $sp^3$ configuration are exact.