Photodetachment of negative hydrogen ions

Abstract

The photodetachment cross section of the negative hydrogen ion is calculated for incident photon wavelengths in the range 1130 to 14040 Å. The free-state wave function of the bound-free transition is calculated from the simplified Kohn-Feshbach variational method. The bound-state wave function is given by Rotenberg and Stein, who used the Hylleraas correlated wave function with a "tail function" added to it. The agreement between the results from the length and velocity formulas in the present work is found to be considerably better compared to earlier theoretical results. The overall agreement with experimental results also shows some improvement. The cross section is found to rise and fall sharply in the closed-channel resonance region at the positions of the two singlet $P$ resonances. The shape parameter $q$ is also calculated for each resonance state.