Universality in Ionic Three-body Systems Near an Ion-atom Feshbach Resonance

TL;DR

This paper investigates the universal and non-universal behaviors of three-body ionic systems near an atom-ion Feshbach resonance, revealing unique properties due to long-range interactions and potential for new many-body physics.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of three-body ionic systems near a Feshbach resonance, highlighting deviations from universality and characterizing their spectral and dynamical properties.

Findings

Long-range atom-ion interactions cause deviations from universal behavior.

Ionic systems exhibit suppressed inelastic transitions and smaller recombination rates.

Dense spectra of long-lived triatomic molecular ions are characterized.

Abstract

We calculate bound and scattering properties of a system of two neutral atoms and an ion near an atom-ion Feshbach resonance. Our results indicate that long-range atom-ion interactions lead to significant deviations from universal behavior derived from contact or van der Waals potentials. We find that ionic systems display an overall suppression of inelastic transitions leading to recombination rates and lifetimes of Efimov state orders of magnitude smaller with respect to those for neutral atoms. We further characterize the dense spectra of triatomic molecular ions with extended lifetimes. Our results provide a deeper insight on the universality and structure of three-body ionic systems and establishing them as a promising platform for exploring novel few- and many-body phenomena with long-range interactions.