Alkali and alkali-earth ions in 4He systems

Abstract

We study with variational Monte Carlo simulations a single ion impurity in nanodroplets and in liquid 4He. Within the shadow wave function (SWF) approach we have studied alkali-earth ion doped 4He systems (Be + and Mg+) and we have also improved our previous variational results for alkali ion impurities (Na+, K+, and Cs+). The new SWF allows for anisotropic correlations between 4He atoms and the ion. The first shell of 4He atoms around the ions has always a well defined solidlike structure, which is remarkably different for each ion but it does not depend on the 4He system (bulk liquid or cluster). We also give results for the chemical potential, the single particle excitation spectrum, and the effective mass of the ions in the bulk.