Triatomic Molecular Systems and Three-body forces: The Ar_3 case

Abstract

We performed bound state calculations to obtain the first few vibrational states for the Ar_3 molecular system. The equations used are of Faddeev-type and are solved directly as three-dimensional equations in configuration space, i.e. without resorting to an explicit partial wave decomposition. In addition to realistic pairwise interactions, we employ long range three-body forces. Our results are in good agreement with those obtained by other methods based on partial wave expansion and show a significant contribution of the three-body forces (>10%) to the binding energy and thus their inclusion is, in general, warranted in studying similar triatomic systems.