Ground-state energy and stability limit of small 3He drops

Abstract

Small and stable drops of 3He atoms can only exist above a minimum number of particles, due to the combination of the 3He atom Fermi statistics and its light mass. An accurate estimation of this minimum number using microscopic theory has been difficult due to the inhomogeneous and fermionic nature of these systems. We present a diffusion Monte Carlo calculation of 3He drops with sizes near the minimum in order to determine the stability threshold. The results show that the minimum self-bound drop is formed by N=30 atoms with preferred orbitals for open shells corresponding to maximum value of the spin.

5 pages, 4 figures

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