Two-electron atom with a screened interaction

Abstract

We present analytical solutions to a quantum-mechanical three-body problem in three dimensions, which describes a helium-like two-electron atom. Similarly to Hooke's atom, the Coulombic electron-nucleus interaction potentials are replaced by harmonic potentials. The electron-electron interaction potential is taken to be both screened (decaying faster than the inverse of the interparticle separation) and regularized (in the limit of zero separation). We reveal the exactly solvable few-electron ground state, which explicitly includes electron correlation, for certain values of the harmonic containment.