On the three-body Schrödinger equation with decaying potentials

Abstract

The three-body Schrödinger operator in the space of square integrable functions is found to be a certain extension of operators which generate the exponential unitary group containing a subgroup with nilpotent Lie algebra of length $\kappa +1$, $\kappa =0,1,...$ As a result, the solutions to the three-body Schrödinger equation with decaying potentials are shown to exist in the commutator subalgebras. For the Coulomb three-body system, it turns out that the task is to solve - in these subalgebras - the radial Schrödinger equation in three dimensions with the inverse power potential of the form $r^{-\kappa -1}$. As an application to Coulombic system, analytic solutions for some lower bound states are presented. Under conditions pertinent to the three-unit-charge system, obtained solutions, with $\kappa =0$, are reduced to the well-known eigenvalues of bound states at threshold.

arXiv comment1 figure