Dynamic Polarizability of Helium

Abstract

A variational method is constructed to calculate the dynamic polarizability of the ground state of helium. A $2^{1}P$-type trial function is used for the first-order wave function in computation. The results of the present work agree excellently with the best previous calculations and with experiments in the long-wavelength limit. Furthermore, the present method gives 581 Å for the first transition wavelength as compared with the experimental value 584 Å, while the best previous calculation gives 573 Å.