  We present a new high-performance configuration interaction code optimally
designed for the calculation of the lowest energy eigenstates of a few
electrons in semiconductor quantum dots (also called artificial atoms) in the
strong interaction regime. The implementation relies on a single-particle
representation, but it is independent of the choice of the single-particle
basis and, therefore, of the details of the device and configuration of
external fields. Assuming no truncation of the Fock space of Slater
determinants generated from the chosen single-particle basis, the code may
tackle regimes where Coulomb interaction very effectively mixes many
determinants. Typical strongly correlated systems lead to very large
diagonalization problems; in our implementation, the secular equation is
reduced to its minimal rank by exploiting the symmetry of the effective-mass
interacting Hamiltonian, including square total spin. The resulting Hamiltonian
is diagonalized via parallel implementation of the Lanczos algorithm. The code
gives access to both wave functions and energies of first excited states.
Excellent code scalability in a parallel environment is demonstrated; accuracy
is tested for the case of up to eight electrons confined in a two-dimensional
harmonic trap as the density is progressively diluted and correlation becomes
dominant. Comparison with previous Quantum Monte Carlo simulations in the
Wigner regime demonstrates power and flexibility of the method.
