Slow collisions in a three-body system with coulomb interaction

A general approach is formulated for solving problems of slow collisions in a three-body system with Coulomb interaction. The approach is based on the method of perturbed stationary states, i.e. , the solutions of the three-body Schrödinger equation are expanded in the eigenfunctions of the quantum-mechanical two-center problem. The equations are integrated numerically by the method of phase functions. A fairly large class of problems in atomic and mesoatomic physics can be posed and solved with reasonable accuracy in this approach. Special cases of these problems have been solved in earlier papers of the authors.