Using a particularly accurate and locally correct helium wave function, obtained by direct solution of the three-body Schrödinger equation, calculations were performed for double- and single-electron photoionization cross sections of the helium atom in the limit of high but nonrelativistic photon frequencies. In the dipole approximation, the cross-section ratio is frequency independent and equal to 0.016 45, which should be compared with the values 0.016 44, 0.0167, and 0.0168 calculated recently in the literature using different variational wave functions.

• Received 24 February 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.62.064701