Five ways to get stuck in a triple collision
Gregor Tanner
University of Nottingham

July 8, 2004, 10:15 a.m.


The triple collision is a main source of chaos in three body Coulomb problems such as the classical dynamics of two electrons in the Coulomb potential of a heavy nucleus. We analyse here in some detail the topology of the phase space near the triple collision and the hetero-clinic tangle of the triple collision point itself. We show that for two-electron atoms the existence of the so-called Wannier ridge leads to classical trajectories which come close to the triple-collision arbitrarily often without escaping. These classical results may prove relevant for understanding long range electron-electron correlation effects observed in experiments on (quantum) two electron atoms.



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Five ways to get stuck in a triple collision
Gregor Tanner
University of Nottingham

July 8, 2004, 10:15 a.m.


The triple collision is a main source of chaos in three body Coulomb problems such as the classical dynamics of two electrons in the Coulomb potential of a heavy nucleus. We analyse here in some detail the topology of the phase space near the triple collision and the hetero-clinic tangle of the triple collision point itself. We show that for two-electron atoms the existence of the so-called Wannier ridge leads to classical trajectories which come close to the triple-collision arbitrarily often without escaping. These classical results may prove relevant for understanding long range electron-electron correlation effects observed in experiments on (quantum) two electron atoms.



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