Highly excited 1sns states of the helium atom

Abstract

Variational calculations are reported on the 1sns singlet and triplet states of the helium atom, up to and including n = 26. By suitable choice of terms in the expansion for the wave function, significant economies in computer time are possible, and we quote an example of a 12-term uncorrelated wave function which gives a lower energy than Pekeris' 220-term correlated wave function. The problems of extending these calculations to much higher n (e.g. n > 100) to include states of astrophysical interest are enumerated.