Correlation trends in the polarizabilities of atoms and ions in the boron, carbon, and zinc homologous sequences of elements.

We investigate the role of electron-correlation effects in calculations of the electric-dipole polarizabilities a of elements belonging to three different groups (12-14) of the periodic table. To understand the propagation of the electron-correlation effects at different levels of approximations, we employ the relativistic many-body methods developed, based on first principles, at mean-field Dirac-Fock (DF), third-order many-body perturbation theory [MBPT(3)], random-phase approximation (RPA), and singly and doubly approximated coupled-cluster methods at the linearized (LCCSD) and nonlinearized (CCSD) levels. We observe a variance in the trends of the contributions of the correlation effects in a particular group of elements through the many-body method used; however, they resemble a similar tendency among the iso-electronic systems. Our CCSD results are within sub-1% agreement with the experimental values which are further ameliorated by including the contributions from the important triple excitations (CCSDPT method). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]