Response of the near-threshold resonances of the $\bm{dtμ}$ molecular ion to an effective atomic $2s$--$2p$ splitting

Abstract

For the nonrelativistic three-body Coulomb Hamiltonian, near-threshold resonances of the deuterium--tritium muonic molecular ion ($dtμ$) are supported by the long-range dipole coupling between degenerate atomic $2s$ and $2p$ states. We study the effect of atomic $2s$--$2p$ splitting on their positions and decay widths. Three-body complex-absorbing-potential calculations resolve additional members of the $L^π=0^+$ and $1^-$ series. Their geometric spacing agrees with that expected from the $1/R^2$ dipole attraction, where $R$ is the atom--nucleus separation. To assess the effect of splitting, we scan a prescribed $2s$--$2p$ interval using an effective potential in a spin-independent, nonrelativistic Hamiltonian. This models the atomic splitting without an explicit Lamb-shift calculation. Within this model, the studied resonances lie closer to the $dμ(2s)+t$ threshold and have smaller Coulomb decay widths than in the degenerate case. At an effective interval of $0.2\eV$, the seventh $1^-$ member lies within $2\meV$ of this threshold with a full width of about $4\meV$, compared with $48$ and $15.6\meV$ at degeneracy. These values characterize the response within the tested numerical representations. Its width decreases, but its separation from the threshold decreases more strongly. The long-range analysis attributes these shifts and width reductions to modified dipole mixing. It further suggests that atomic $2s$--$2p$ splitting may truncate the infinite accumulation of resonances predicted for degenerate atomic $2s$ and $2p$ levels.