Elimination of angular dependency in quantum three-body problem made easy

Abstract: A straightforward technique is presented to eliminate the angular dependency in a nonrelativistic quantum three-body system. Solid bipolar spherical harmonics are used as the angular basis. A correspondence relation between minimal bipolar spherical harmonics and the Wigner functions $\mathcal{D}$ is reported. This relation simplifies the evaluation of angular matrix elements compared to prior methods. A closed form of an angular matrix element is presented. The resulting radial equations are suitable for numerical estimation of the energy eigenvalues for arbitrary angular momentum and space parity states. The reported relations are validated through accurate numerical estimation of energy eigenvalues within the framework of the Ritz-variational principle using an explicitly correlated multi-exponent Hylleraas-type basis for $L=0$ to $7$ natural and for $L=1$ to $4$ unnatural space parity states of the helium atom. The results show a good agreement with the best reported values.