Self-consistent calculations in spherical metal clusters with uniformly averaged realistic pseudopotentials

Using realistic nonlocal pseudopotentials to describe ion-valence electron interaction, we perform self-consistent calculations of ground and excited states of spherical alkali-metal clusters within the local-density approximation. The ion pseudopotential is uniformly averaged in the cluster sphere within the proposed pseudopotential jellium model. It is found that in small clusters, pseudopotentials lead to predictions that strongly improve those of the jellium model and are very close to the results found previously with pseudo-Hamiltonians. © 1995 The American Physical Society.