Interaction of Heavy Charged Particles with Atomic Hydrogen

Rimantas Lazauskas, Jaume Carbonell

Yusuke Nishida

When three particles in three dimensions interact with a short-range potential fine-tuned to an infinite scattering length, they form an infinite sequence of loosely bound states obeying discrete scale invariance known as Efimov states. Here we show that analogous states are formed by three charged particles carrying two equal charges and one opposite charge in one, two, and three dimensions without any fine-tuning. Our finding is based on the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, where an effective inverse-square attraction is induced as a consequence of the dipole-charge interaction between a hydrogenlike heavy-light atom and a far-separated heavy particle. Because the resulting Efimovian states emerge toward the second or higher dissociation threshold, they are to be realized as quasibound states and may be observed by exciting hydrogen molecular ions and trions in excitonic systems. We also consider the same system but with a logarithmic Coulomb potential relevant to quantum vortices in two-dimensional superfluids, where the Efimovian states are shown to emerge as genuine bound states toward the first dissociation threshold.

Liberman, А. В. Петров

S. N. Tiwary, D. D. Singh

Zachary Temple

Heavy-ion charged particle collisions have important applications in fields such as astrophysics, biophysics, and plasma physics, and from a fundamental standpoint, provide valuable information about the few-body problem. Current theoretical atomic collision models work well for electron projectiles, but heavy-ion projectiles continue to present a challenge for even the most advanaced models. To help address these challenges, we have developed the Path Integral Quantum Trajectory (PIQTr) model for the calculation of time-dependent wave functions. The method is numerically exact and has been successfully applied to particles moving in one dimension. These results show a favorable scaling in computational requirements as the mass of the projectile increases, and in general, the model has been shown to work well for heavy ions. We have now extended our method to charged particles moving in two dimensions. Here we present time-dependent numerical results for various different charged particles and discuss applications to heavy-ion atomic collisions.

Irfan Javed, Edward Wilson-Ewing

According to the ER = EPR conjecture, entangled particles are connected by quantum wormholes. Under the assumption that some of the electric field surrounding an entangled charged particle leaks into the wormhole, we show that this effect will modify the hyperfine structure of the hydrogen atom. In addition, if the quantum wormholes are non-traversable, this will also lead to a non-zero total effective charge for the hydrogen atom. These effects provide strong constraints on the amplitude of this potential ER = EPR effect, given high-precision measurements of the hydrogen atom's hyperfine structure and total charge.