Density functional theory calculation of ground state energy, dipole polarizability and hyperpolarizability of a confined helium atom

Abstract: We calculate ground-state energies and densities of a helium atom confined in an impenetrable spherical box within density functional theory. These calculations are performed by variationally solving Kohn-Sham equation with the ground-state orbital expanded in terms of Slater-type orbitals. Using the ground-state densities we then calculate static linear polarizability and nonlinear hyperpolarizability and study their variation with the radius of confinement. We find that polarizability decreases monotonically with decreasing confinement radius and the hyperpolarizability not only decreases but also undergoes a change in sign in the strong confinement regime.