  Few-electron systems confined in two-dimensional parabolic quantum dots at
high magnetic fields are studied by the Hartree-Fock (HF) and exact
diagonalization methods. A generalized multicenter Gaussian basis is proposed
in the HF method. A comparison of the HF and exact results allows us to discuss
the relevance of the symmetry of the charge density distribution for the
accuracy of the HF method. It is shown that the energy estimates obtained with
the broken-symmetry HF wave functions become exact in the infinite
magnetic-field limit. In this limit the charge density of the broken-symmetry
solution can be identified with the classical charge distribution.
