Quantum Monte Carlo study of the H- impurity in small helium clusters

Abstract

We report ground state energies and structural properties for small helium clusters (4He) containing an H- impurity computed by means of variational and diffusion Monte Carlo methods. Except for 4He_2H- that has a noticeable contribution from collinear geometries where the H- impurity lies between the two 4He atoms, our results show that our 4He_NH- clusters have a compact 4He_N subsystem that binds the H- impurity on its surface. The results for $N\geq 3$ can be interpreted invoking the different features of the minima of the He-He and He-H- interaction potentials.