Perez-Rios Research Selected for the 2022 JCP Emerging Investigators Special Collection
The Journal of Chemical Physics (JCP) Emerging Investigators Special Collection is a special issue dedicated to young
investigators in the field of chemical physics, and very few works are accepted as
part of this annual special issue.
A depiction of the interactions between three bodies (left), and their corresponding
representation in a coordinate system that makes the problem more tractable. [Source].
The selected study focuses on three-body interactions, and in particular seeks to
characterize the behavior of interactions of two neutral atoms and a charged atom.
These types of processes, summarized by the reactions
A + A + B+ → A2 + B+
A + A + B+ → A + AB+
are critically important in a variety of different disciplines, from chemical physics to astrophysics.
The research depends on a mapping of the problem in regular coordinates to hyperspherical coordinates. Working with specific coordinates allows one to transfer the 3-body collisions in 3D space (a problem with 18 variables - each particle's x, y, andz coordinates as well as its momentum in these three directions) to a space with only 6 variables.
The published article may be found here. To read more about the Emerging Investigators Special Collection, read here.