Discussion of the surface tension of liquid helium

Abstract

The author assumes that the bulk properties of liquid helium may be used in discussing its surface energy. By using a modified Bijl-Jastrow wave function a variational calculation is performed to obtain the minimum surface energy. Including only the short range correlations, a result is obtained 40% larger than that observed experimentally. The inclusion of the long range correlations of the bulk (i.e. phonons) in the wave function leads to an unphysical logarithmic divergence. It is argued that this divergence arises from the neglect of the surface modes of vibration in the wave function.