Application of variational Monte Carlo method to the confined helium atom

Abstract

A new application of variational Monte Carlo method is presented to study the helium atom under the compression effect of a spherical box with radius (rc). The ground-state energies of the helium atom were calculated for different values of rc. Our calculations were extended to include Li+and Be2+ions. The calculations were based on the use of a compact accurate trial wave function with five variational parameters. To optimize variational parameters, we used the steepest descent method. The obtained results are in good agreement with previous results.