Modern He–He potentials: Another look at binding energy, effective range theory, retardation, and Efimov states

Abstract

We compare a number of helium–helium potentials with respect to their predictions of dimer binding energy, scattering length, effective range and Efimov states. We also study the effect of retardation on the ‘‘best’’ potential. All realistic potentials support a weakly bound dimer, while none supports an Efimov state. We agree with other authors that retardation decreases the binding energy by about 10%. Finally, we investigated the effect on the binding energy from the application of retardation over different ranges of separation. The precise effects of retardation at short range in realistic potentials require further study.