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

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 $\to$ ${\text{A}}_2^{+}$ + 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.

5 pages, 3 figures