Variational and perturbative approaches to the confined hydrogen atom with a moving nucleus

We calculate the ground–state energy and other physical properties of the hydrogen atom inside a spherical box with an impenetrable wall. We apply the variational method and perturbation theory and compare both approximate results. We show that the total, kinetic and potential energies for the moving–nucleus model are greater than those for the case in which the nucleus is clamped at the box center.