Autoionizing states of atomic boron

We present a B-spline K-matrix method for three-active-electron atoms in the presence of a polarizable core, with which it is possible to compute multichannel single-ionization scattering states with good accuracy. We illustrate the capabilities of the method by computing the parameters of several autoionizing states of the boron atom, with S-2(e), P-2(e,o), and D-2(e) symmetry, up to at least the 2p(2)(S-1) excitation threshold of the B II parent ion, as well as selected portions of the photoionization cross section from the ground state. Our results exhibit remarkable gauge consistency, they significantly extend the existing sparse record of data for the boron atom, and they are in good agreement with the few experimental and theoretical data available in the literature. These results open the way to extend to three-active-electron systems the spectral analysis of correlated wave packets in terms of accurate scattering states that has already been demonstrated for two-electron atoms in Argenti and Lindroth [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 053002 (2010)].