Communications in Theoretical Physics

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A Helium Atom Confined by a Spherical Gaussian Potential Well

XIE Wen-Fang   


  1. Department of Physics, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
  • Received: 2007-06-08 Revised: 1900-01-01 Published: 2008-05-15

Abstract: The helium atom confined by a non-impenetrable spherical box, i.e., a spherical Gaussian potential well which possesses finite height and range, is studied employing the exact diagonalization method. Total energies of the ground and three low-excited states are obtained as a function of the confined potential radii. We find that the confinement may cause accidental degeneracies between levels with different low-excited states and the inversion of the energy values. The results for the three-dimensional spherical potential well and the two-dimensional disc-like potential well are compared with each other: in general, the energies of the states decrease and the energy intervals between states increase with the reduction of the space dimensions.

Key words: helium atom, energy spectrum

PACS numbers: 

  • 31.15.Ja