Fluid-Solid Phase Transition of a Hard-Sphere Bose System

Abstract

The ground-state energy of a system of hard-sphere bosons of diameter $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ is calculated by a variational method using a Jastrow wave-function for the fluid phase and a "localized" Jastrow times a Gaussian wave function for the solid phase. The transition densities are ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\mathrm{fluid}}=0.23\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02$ particles/${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\sigma}}}^{3}$ and ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\mathrm{solid}}=0.25\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02$ particles/${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\sigma}}}^{3}$.