The van der Waals coefficients,
C6,C8, and
C10 for the alkali-metal (Li, Na, K, and Rb) and alkaline-earth-metal (Be, Mg, Ca, and Sr) atoms are estimated by a combination of ab initio and semiempirical methods. Polarizabilities and atom-wall coefficients are given as a diagnostic check, and the lowest order nonadiabatic dispersion coefficient,
D8 and the three-body coefficient,
C9 are also presented. The dispersion coefficients are in agreement with the available relativistic many-body perturbation theory calculations. The contribution from the core was included by using constrained sum rules involving the core polarizability and Hartree-Fock expectation values to estimate the f-value distribution.
Apropos of the growing interest in the study of long-range interactions for their applications in cold-atom physics, we perform theoretical calculations for the two-dipole
C6 and three-dipole
C9 dispersion coefficients involving alkaline-earth-metal atoms with alkaline-earth-metal atoms and alkaline-earth-metal ions. The
C6 and
C9 coefficients are expressed in terms of the dynamic dipole polarizabilities, which are calculated using relativistic methods. Thereafter, the calculated
C6 coefficients for the considered alkaline-earth-metal atoms are compared with previously reported values. Due to unavailability of any other earlier theoretical or experimental results, for the
C6 coefficients for alkaline-earth-metal atoms with alkaline-earth-metal ions and the
C9 coefficients we perform separate fitting calculations and compare the results. Our calculations match in an excellent manner with the fitting calculations. We also report the oscillator strengths for the leading transitions and static dipole polarizabilities for the ground states of the alkaline-earth-metal ions, i.e.,
Be+,Mg+,Ca+,Sr+, and
Ba+, as well as the alkaline-earth-metal atoms, i.e., Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba. These show good agreement when compared with the available experimental results.
Apropos to the growing interest in the study of long-range interactions which for their applications in cold atom physics, we have performed theoretical calculation for the two-dipole
C6 and three-dipole
C9 dispersion coefficients involving alkaline-earth atoms with alkaline-earth atoms and alkaline-earth ions. The
C6 and
C9 coefficients are expressed in terms of the dynamic dipole polarizabilities, which are calculated using relativistic methods. Thereafter, the calculated
C6 coefficients for the considered alkaline-earth atoms among themselves are compared with the previously reported values. Due to unavailability of any other earlier theoretical or experimental results, for the
C6 coefficients for alkaline-earth atoms with alkaline-earth ions and the
C9 coefficients, we have performed separate fitting calculations and compared. Our calculations match in an excellent manner with the fitting calculations. We have also reported the oscillator strengths for the leading transitions and static dipole polarizabilities for the ground states of the alkaline-earth ions, i.e., Mg
+, Ca
+, Sr
+, and Ba
+ as well as the alkaline-earth atoms, i.e., Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba. These, when compared with the available experimental results, show good agreement.
Accurate knowledge of interaction potentials among the alkali-metal atoms and alkaline-earth ions is very useful in the studies of cold atom physics. Here we carry out theoretical studies of the long-range interactions among the Li, Na, K, and Rb alkali-metal atoms with the
Ca+,
Ba+,
Sr+, and
Ra+ alkaline-earth ions systematically, which are largely motivated by their importance in a number of applications. These interactions are expressed as a power series in the inverse of the internuclear separation
R. Both the dispersion and induction components of these interactions are determined accurately from the algebraic coefficients corresponding to each power combination in the series. Ultimately, these coefficients are expressed in terms of the electric multipole polarizabilities of the above-mentioned systems, which are calculated using the matrix elements obtained from a relativistic coupled-cluster method and core contributions to these quantities from the random-phase approximation. We also compare our estimated polarizabilities with the other available theoretical and experimental results to verify accuracies in our calculations. In addition, we also evaluate the lifetimes of the first two low-lying states of the ions using the above matrix elements. Graphical representations of the dispersion coefficients versus
R are given among all the alkaline ions with Rb.