Electric Multipole Plasmons in Deformed Sodium Clusters

Abstract The random-phase-approximation (RPA) method with separable residual forces (SRPA) is proposed for the description of multipole electric oscillations of valence electrons in deformed alkali metal clusters. Both the deformed mean field and residual interaction are derived self-consistently from the Kohn–Sham functional. SRPA drastically simplifies the computational effort which is urgent if not decisive for deformed systems. The method is applied to the description of dipole, quadrupole, and octupole plasmons in deformed sodium clusters of a moderate size. We demonstrate that, in clusters with the size N>50, Landau damping successfully competes with deformation splitting and even becomes decisive in forming the width and gross structure of the dipole plasmon. Besides, the plasmon is generated by excitations from both ground state and shape isomers. In such clusters familiar experimental estimates for deformation splitting of dipole plasmon are useless.