A new property of atom energies

A proof is given that the total nuclear-electron attraction energy should be constant for all the light atoms, when calculated by various trial wave functions. If hydrogenic wave functions for effective nuclear charges are picked as standards, it is easy to calculate the value of this energy. This constraint should be added to the usual constraints (minimum energy and the virial theorem) of the variation method. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011