Elastic scattering using an artificial confining potential

The discrete energies of a scattering Hamiltonian calculated under the influence of an artificial confining potential of almost arbitrary functional form can be used to determine its phase shifts. The method exploits the result that two short-range Hamiltonians having the same energy will have the same phase shifts upon removal of the confining potential. An initial verification is performed on a simple model problem. Then the stochastic variational method is used to determine the energies of the confined e(-)-He(2)S(e) system and thus determine the low energy phase shifts.