Properties of a Simplified Liquid 4He Ground State

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A many‐body wavefunction is constructed by antisymmetrization, with respect to the electron variables, of a product of 4He‐atom wavefunctions, each in its individual ground state. This wavefunction is shown to have the following properties: (1) The pair distribution function D(Rij) vanishes at zero separation Rij = 0; part of the mutual repulsion of 4He atoms is built into the wavefunction as a result of the exclusion principle acting between the electron shells on different atoms. (2) Neither the nuclei nor the whole atoms undergo Bose condensation, but there is a ``Fermi condensation'' similar to that shown by Yang to characterize superconductivity, arising from off‐diagonal long‐range order of the appropriate reduced density matrix.
Keywords