Calculation of the wave functions of the ground and weakly excited states of helium II

The wave functions of the ground (Ψ₀) and the first excited (Ψ_k) states of He II in the second-order approximation, i.e., up to the first two corrections to the corresponding solutions for a weakly nonideal Bose gas, are determined by the collective variable method, which was proposed by Bogolyubov and Zubarev and developed in the studies by Yukhnovskii and Vakarchuk. The functions Ψ₀ and Ψ_k = ψ_kΨ₀ are determined as the eigenfunctions of the N-particle Schrödinger equation from a system of coupled equations for Ψ₀, Ψ_k, and the quasiparticle spectrum E(k) of helium II. The results consist in the following: (1) these equations are solved numerically for a higher order approximation compared with those investigated earlier (the first-order approximation), and (2) Ψ₀ and ψ_k are derived from a model potential of interaction between He⁴ atoms (rather than from the structure factor as earlier) in which the potential barrier is joined with the attractive potential found from experiment. The height V ₀ of the potential barrier is a free parameter. Except for V ₀, the model does not have any free parameters or functions. The calculated values of the structure factor, the ground-state energy E ₀, and the quasiparticle spectrum E(k) of He II are in agreement with the experimental values for V ₀ ≈ 100 K. The second-order correction to the logarithm of Ψ₀ significantly affects the value of E ₀ and provides the asymptotics E(k → 0) = ck, while the second-order correction to ψ_k slightly affects the E(k). The second-order corrections to Ψ₀ and ψ_k have a smaller effect on the results compared with the first-order corrections, whereby the theory is in agreement with experiment; therefore, one may assume that the truncated Ψ₀ and ψ_k well describe the microstructure of He II. Thus, the series for Ψ₀ and Ψ_k can be truncated in spite of the fact that the expansion parameter is not very small (～1/2).