TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENCE OF SUPERSHELLS IN LARGE SODIUM CLUSTERS

We present self-consistent calculations of the electronic shell and supershell structure of sodium clusters with up to N approximately 1600 atoms at finite temperatures and N approximately 2800 at zero temperature, employing the spherical jellium model in the local-density approximation and numerically solving the Kohn-Sham equations. The finite temperature of the valence electrons is included by treating them as a canonical subsystem embedded in the heat bath of the ions. We present sensitive quantities for the effects of temperature and self-consistency upon the supershell structure and compare our results with recent experiments and former calculations based on phenomenological mean-field potentials.