Properties of few-electron artificial atoms

The spectra of quantum dots of different geometry (``quantum ring'', ``quantum cylinder'', ``spherical square-well'' and ``parabolic confinement'') are studied. The stochastic variational method on correlated Gaussian basis functions and a large scale shell-model approach have been used to investigate these ``artificial'' atoms and their properties in magnetic field. Accurate numerical results are presented for $N$=2-8 electron systems.