Date of Award
2014
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.Sc.
Department
Physics
Keywords
Quantum physics, Atoms & subatomic particles, Theoretical physics
Supervisor
Drake, Gordon W. F.
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The critical nuclear charge Z c for a three-body quantum mechanical system consisting of positive and negative charges is the minimum charge for the system to remain in a bound state. This work presents a study of the critical nuclear charge for heliumlike systems with infinite nuclear mass, and also a range of the reduced mass up to 0.5. The results help us to resolve a discrepancy in the literature for the infinite mass case, and they are the first to study the dependence on reduced mass. It is found that Z c has a maximum at [Special characters omitted.] mM = 3525, which is intermediate between the atomic structure of helium, and the molecular structure of [Special characters omitted.] H+2 . Z c for the infinite mass case is found to be 0.911028267. This value is compatible with the result of Baker, et al, who found the upper bound for Z c to be 0.91103. However, it does not agree with other results in the literature. The understanding of the critical charge will bring us a deeper appreciation of the stability of a three-body system as a function of the reduced mass, correlation effects of coulombic potential and more importantly, the physics of a three-body quantum mechanical system.
Recommended Citation
Moini, Amirreza, "Critical nuclear charge of quantum mechanical three-body problem" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5049.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/5049