Hyperspherical approach to Coulombic three-body systems with different masses

Abstract

The authors adopted mass-weighted hyperspherical coordinates to study the properties of Coulombic three-body systems where all three particles are different. Using an adiabatic approximation, they applied the finite-element method to the two-dimensional eigenvalue problems at fixed hyperradius. The authors have calculated the adiabatic hyperspherical potential curves, and examined the wavefunctions (in terms of density plots) and the non-adiabatic coupling terms for a number of three-body systems. By fixing the masses of two of the particles, they examined how these properties vary with the mass of the third particle. The existence of stable bound states versus the masses of the systems is also investigated.