The binding energy of the alpha particle with a velocity-dependent potential containing a tensor component

The authors make a variational calculation of the binding energy of the alpha particle with the velocity-dependent potential of Nestor et al (abstr. A33865 of 1968) which contains a tensor component. The trial wave function used is a mixture of the 1S0 and the principle 5D0 states, the radial dependence of both these states being Gaussian. The Coulomb energy of interaction is calculated by the usual perturbation method with the potential of Schneider and Thaler (abstr. A11023 of 1965) which takes into consideration the finite size of the nucleons. The calculation gives the values of the binding energy and the root-mean-square radius of the alpha particle in reasonably good agreement with experiments.