Atoms as many-body systems

Contrary to common wisdom, not everything is clear and simple in the structure of many-electron atoms. Complexity in atoms is mainly a result of interelectron interaction that leads to rather unusual behaviour. Most transparently this is manifested in photo-ionization processes of many-electron atoms and some multi-atomic objects e.g. endohedrals. Particular attention will be given to the approach describing the interaction of photons with many-electron atoms in the frame of the many-body theory based on the Feynman diagrams technique. As a suitable one-electron approximation the Hartree - Fock (HF) approach will be presented. On its ground we will include the so-called electron correlation effects and discuss the frequently used Random Phase Approximation with Exchange - RPAE. Some results of recent calculations will be presented.