MONTE CARLO STUDIES OF CRYSTALLINE HELIUM

Overview & Synopsis

Results for properties of solid helium at zero temperature are presented. Most of the data were obtained by a Monte Carlo method which gives an exact solution of the Schrödinger equation. For helium 4 we exhibit the energy as a function of the density, the properties of the liquid-solid transition, the one-body density, the structure function, and the momentum distribution, calculated for an f.c.c. lattice. The agreement of the calculated thermodynamic properties with experiment is better than those calculated variationally, but the Lennard-Jones potential does not give a quantitative description of helium 4. Differences between f.c.c. and h.c.p. phases do not explain the discrepancy. For helium 3, results of variational calculations using exactly antisymmetric trial functions are given.