Monte Carlo analysis of an interatomic potential for He

Abstract

By means of a quadratic diffusion Monte Carlo method we have performed a comparative analysis between the Aziz potential and a revised version of it. The results demonstrate that the revised version produces a better description of the equation of state for liquid ${}_{}{}^4{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{He}$. In spite of the improvement in the description of derivative magnitudes of the energy, as the pressure or the compressibility, the energy per particle which comes from this revised potential is lower than the experimental one. The inclusion of three-body interactions, which give a repulsive contribution to the potential energy, makes it feasible that the calculated energy comes close to the experimental result.