Universal temperature dependence of the ion-neutral-neutral three-body recombination rate

TL;DR

This paper introduces a universal, first-principles classical model for ion-neutral-neutral three-body recombination rates, applicable to any system, and validated against experimental data and existing theories.

Contribution

It provides a general, parameter-free formulation based on hyperspherical coordinates, improving predictive power over previous models that relied on fitting parameters.

Findings

The model accurately predicts recombination rates for rare gases.

It matches experimental data without fitting parameters.

Applicable to any ion-atom-atom system.

Abstract

A classical approach based on hyperspherical coordinates is used to derive a first principle formulation of the the ion-neutral-neutral three-body recombination rate, A$^+$ + A + A $\rightarrow$ $\text{A}_2^+$ + A, in terms of the mass of the atom and its polarizability. The robustness and predictive power of our approach have been checked in comparison with experimental data of rare gas three-body recombination as well as previous theoretical frameworks, which need one or two atom-dependent fitting parameters. Thus, our approach is general and applicable to any ion-atom-atom system.