Coulomb Correlation and Information Entropies in Confined Helium-Like Atoms

TL;DR

This paper investigates electronic correlation in confined helium-like atoms using informational entropies, highlighting how Coulomb correlation effects vary with confinement strength and validating energy calculations against existing literature.

Contribution

It introduces the use of informational entropies to analyze Coulomb correlation in confined atoms and compares different wavefunctions for accuracy.

Findings

Entropies are sensitive to Coulomb correlation effects.

Correlation effects diminish under strong confinement.

Energy values align well with literature results.

Abstract

The present work studies aspects of the electronic correlation in confined H$^{-}$, He and Li$^+$ atoms in their ground states using the informational entropies. In this way, different variational wavefunctions are employed in order of better take account of Coulomb correlation. The obtained values for the $S_r$, $S_p$ and $S_t$ entropies are sensitive in relation to Coulomb correlation effects. In the strong confinement regime, the effects of the Coulomb correlation are negligible and the employment of the models of independent particle and two non-interacting electrons confined by a impenetrable spherical cage gains importance in this regime. Lastly, energy values are obtained in good agreement with the results available in the literature.