Hartree equation

In 1927, a year after the publication of the Schrödinger equation, Hartree formulated what are now known as the Hartree equations for atoms, using the concept of self-consistency that Lindsay had introduced in his study of many electron systems in the context of Bohr theory. Hartree assumed that the nucleus together with the electrons formed a spherically symmetric field. The charge distribution of each electron was the solution of the Schrödinger equation for an electron in a potential ${\displaystyle v(r)}$, derived from the field. Self-consistency required that the final field, computed from the solutions, was self-consistent with the initial field, and he thus called his method the self-consistent field method.