Multiparticle Quantum Scattering with Applications to Nuclear, Atomic and Molecular Physics, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1997
The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications Series, Vol. 89

This volume is based on the outcome of a workshop held at the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications. This institute was founded to promote the interchange of ideas between applied mathematics and the other sciences, and this volume fits into that framework by bringing together the ideas of mathematicians, physicists and chemists in the area of multiparticle scattering theory. The correct formulation of scattering theory for two-body collisions is now well worked out, but systems with three or more particles still present fundamental challenges, both in the formulations of the problem and in the interpretation of computational results. The book begins with two tutorials, one on mathematical issues, including cluster decompositions and asymptotic completeness in N-body quantum systems, and the other on computational approaches to quantum mechanics and time evolution operators, classical action, collisions in laser fields and in magnetic fields, laser-induced processes, barrier resonances, complex dilated expansions, effective potentials for nuclear collisions, long-range potentials, and the Pauli Principle.

N-body quantum systems: A tutorial.- A tutorial on computational approaches to quantum scattering.- Time-independent wavepacket quantum mechanics.- Classical action and quantum N-body asymptotic completeness.- On trace formulas for Schrödinger-type operators.- Multiparticle quantum systems in constant magnetic fields.- New channels of scattering for two-and three-body quantum systems with long-range potentials.- State-of-state transition probabilities and control of laser-induced dynamical processes by the (t, t?) Method.- Barrier resonances and chemical reactivity.- Quantization in the continuum - complex dilated expansions of scattering quantities.- Microscopic atomic and nuclear mean fields.- The Pauli principle in multi-cluster states of nuclei.- Nonperturbative approaches to atomic and molecular multiphoton (half-collision) processes in intense laser fields.- Global recursion polynomial expansions of the Green’s function and time evolution operator for the Schrödinger equation with absorbing boundary conditions.

The topics in this volume include the ideas of mathematicians, physicists and chemists in the area of multiparticle scattering theory. Scattering theory (or collision theory as it is often called) is a fundamental area of theory and computation in both physics and chemistry. The correct formulation of scattering theory for two-body collisions is now well worked out, but sy- stems with three or more particles still present fundamental un- met challenges, both in the formulations of the problem and in the interpretation of computational results. A key issue in the mathematical foundations is asymptotic completeness, which says that any state of a quantum system is a superposition of bound and scattering states. Key issues on the physical side are con- cerned with boundary conditions, electro