Generic expansion of the Jastrow correlation factor in polynomials satisfying symmetry and cusp conditions.

Jastrow correlation factors play an important role in quantum Monte Carlo calculations. Together with an orbital based antisymmetric function, they allow the construction of highly accurate correlation wave functions. In this paper, a generic expansion of the Jastrow correlation function in terms of polynomials that satisfy both the electron exchange symmetry constraint and the cusp conditions is presented. In particular, an expansion of the three-body electron-electron-nucleus contribution in terms of cuspless homogeneous symmetric polynomials is proposed. The polynomials can be expressed in fairly arbitrary scaling function allowing a generic implementation of the Jastrow factor. It is demonstrated with a few examples that the new Jastrow factor achieves 85%-90% of the total correlation energy in a variational quantum Monte Carlo calculation and more than 90% of the diffusion Monte Carlo correlation energy.