Singlet and triplet spin state energies for three-dimensionalHooke atoms, i .e. electrons in a quadratic confinement, with even number of electrons (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) is discussed using Full-CI and CASSCF type wavefunctions with a variety of basis sets and considering perturbative corrections up to second order. The effect of the screening of the electron-electron interaction is also discussed by using a Yukawa-type potential with different values of the Yukawa screening parameter (λee =0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0). Our results show that the singlet state is the ground state for 2 and 8 electron Hooke atoms, whereas the triplet is the ground spin state for 4, 6 and 10 electron systems. This suggests the following Auf bau structure 1s < 1p < 1d with singlet ground spin states for systems in which the generation of the triplet implies an inter-shell one electron promotion, and triplet ground states in cases when there is a partial filling of electrons of a given shell. It is also observed that the screening of electronelectron interactions has a sizable quantitative effect on the relative energies of both spin states, specially in the case of 2 and 8 electron systems, favouring the singlet state over the triplet. However, the screening of the electron-electron interaction does not provoke a change in the nature of the ground spin state of these systems. By analyzing the different components of the energy, we have gained a deeper understanding of the effects of the kinetic, confinement and electron-electron interaction components of the energy.

In thiswork,we have computed and implemented one-body integrals concerning gaussian confinement potentials over gaussian basis functions. Then, we have set an equivalence between gaussian and Hooke atoms and we have observed that, according to singlet and triplet state energies, both systems are equivalent for large confinement depth for a series of even number of electrons n = 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. Unlike with harmonic potentials, gaussian confinement potentials are dissociative for small enough depth parameter; this feature is crucial in order to model phenomena such as ionization. In this case, in addition to corresponding Taylor series expansions, the first diagonal and sub-diagonal Padé approximant were also obtained, useful to compute the upper and lower limits for the dissociation depth. Hence, this method introduces new advantages compared to others.