skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Spectra of helium clusters with up to six atoms using soft-core potentials

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
 [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Institut Non-Lineaire de Nice, CNRS, 1361 route des Lucioles, F-06560 Valbonne (France)
  2. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Largo Pontecorvo 3, I-56100 Pisa (Italy)

In this paper, we investigate small clusters of helium atoms using the hyperspherical harmonic basis. We consider systems with A=2,3,4,5,6 atoms with an interparticle potential which does not present a strong repulsion at short distances. We use an attractive Gaussian potential that reproduces the values of the dimer binding energy, the atom-atom scattering length, and the effective range obtained with one of the widely used He-He interactions, the Aziz and Slaman potential, called LM2M2. In systems with more than two atoms, we consider a repulsive three-body force that, by construction, reproduces the trimer binding energy of the LM2M2 potential. With this model, consisting of the sum of a two- and three-body potential, we have calculated the spectrum of clusters formed by four, five, and six helium atoms. We have found that these systems present two bound states, one deep and one shallow, close to the threshold fixed by the energy of the (A-1)-atom system. Universal relations between the energies of the excited state of the A-atom system and the ground-state energy of the (A-1)-atom system are extracted, as well as the ratio between the ground state of the A-atom system and the ground-state energy of the trimer.

OSTI ID:
22093504
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Vol. 84, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English