Jellium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jellium is the model of interacting electrons in which a uniform background of positive charge exists. In this model at zero temperature the system properties are dependent only on the charge density of electrons. This allows for the simplistic calculation of the electron-electron coupling energy being a ratio between the free-electron kinetic energy and the Coulomb potential energy.
The model works with the atoms as if they were actually blobs of jelly, hence the name. The jellium model is also used in nuclear physics, and has been used to try to explain the properties of superatoms.
