Approximate Wave Functions for Atomic Be

A configuration interaction calculation, involving thirty-seven configurations and including the (1s) ^2 (2s) ^2 Hartree-Fock function, has been done for the ground state of atomic Be. Approximately ninety percent of the correlation energy has been incorporated into the final total energy. The results indicate that the correlation energy is associated with two effects, namely that of the "correlation hole" as has been observed for He and that of "orbital degeneracy" (which does not appear in the two-electron He case). The former effect is best handled by the Hylleraas approach and the latter by the configuration interaction method, and the results suggest that an admixture of the two methods would lead to the most rapidly convergent description of the exact four-electron wave function. The errors introduced by handling "high-lying" configurations by second-order perturbation theory rather than by exact configuration interaction are also investigated.