Observability of the Efimov spectrum in an electron-atom-atom system

Abstract

The bound states of a system consisting of two heavy identical atoms and one light electron interacting through the finite-range pairwise potentials are explored, focusing on their dependence on the electron-atom scattering length. In the case of an exact resonance in the electron-atom interaction, the binding energy of an electron yields an effective $1/r^{2}$ potential for the relative motion of the atoms; One major finding is a universal potential that depends on the polarization length which goes beyond the Efimov region. An analytic expression for that potential is extracted from numerical calculations. The spectrum of the e+Rb+Rb system produced by the electron-atom polarization interaction exhibits three main sections, a non-universal transition region, a quasi-Efimov region, and a densely packed Efimov region.