All-order relativistic computations for atoms and molecules using an explicitly correlated Gaussian basis

Abstract

A variational solution procedure is reported for the many-particle no-pair Dirac-Coulomb-Breit Hamiltonian aiming at a parts-per-billion (ppb) convergence of the atomic and molecular energies, described within the fixed nuclei approximation. The procedure is tested for nuclear charge numbers from $Z=1$ (hydrogen) to $28$ (iron). Already for the lowest $Z$ values, a significant difference is observed from leading-order Foldy-Woythusen perturbation theory, but the observed deviations are smaller than the estimated self-energy and vacuum polarization corrections.