Electrostatic interaction inside and outside the source

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on calculating the electrostatic interaction between an electron and a nucleus, particularly when the electron is in an S1/2 state. The integral presented is defined as $$\int_{r_e=0}^{r_e=\infty}\int_{r_n=0}^{r_n=R}\frac{\rho(r_n)}{|r_e-r_n|}d^3r_ed^3r_n$$, where ##\rho(r_n)## represents the nuclear charge density and ##R## is the nuclear radius. The user seeks to simplify the expression $$\frac{1}{|r_e-r_n|}$$ using Legendre polynomials for further analysis.

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kelly0303
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Hello! I want to get the electrostatic interaction (between and electron and a nucleus), while accounting for the fact that the electron can also be inside the nucleus (e.g. in an S##_{1/2}## state). I ended up with this double integral:

$$\int_{r_e=0}^{r_e=\infty}\int_{r_n=0}^{r_n=R}\frac{\rho(r_n)}{|r_e-r_n|}d^3r_ed^3r_n$$

where ##r_e## and ##r_n## are the electron and nuclear coordinates and ##R## is the nuclear radius. Please note that we are not necessarily assuming that the nucleus is a perfect sphere (although it is usually very close to it). How can I expand the ##\frac{1}{|r_e-r_n|}## and get this into a simpler form that I can also truncate as needed? Thank you!
 
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That function is expanded in Legendre polynomials as
$$\frac{1}{|{\bf r}-{\bf r'}|}=\sum_l\frac{r'^l}{r^{l+1}}P_l(\cos\theta)$$,
with the smaller r in the numerator.
 
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