English

Stable He$^-$ can exist in a strong magnetic field

Atomic Physics 2019-08-13 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Chemical Physics Quantum Physics

Abstract

The existence of bound states of the system (\al,e,e,e)(\al,e,e,e) in a magnetic field BB is studied using the variational method. It is shown that for B0.13a.u.B \gtrsim 0.13\,{\rm a.u.} this system gets bound with total energy below the one of the (\al,e,e)(\al,e,e) system. It manifests the existence of the stable He^- atomic ion. Its ground state is a spin-doublet 2(1)+^2(-1)^{+} at 0.74a.u.B0.13a.u.0.74\, {\rm a.u.} \gtrsim B \gtrsim 0.13\, {\rm a.u.} and it becomes a spin-quartet 4(3)+^4(-3)^{+} for larger magnetic fields. For 0.8a.u.B0.7a.u.0.8\, {\rm a.u.} \gtrsim B \gtrsim 0.7\, {\rm a.u.} the He^- ion has two (stable) bound states 2(1)+^2(-1)^{+} and 4(3)+^4(-3)^{+}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.4810,
  title  = {Stable He$^-$ can exist in a strong magnetic field},
  author = {A. V. Turbiner and J. C. Lopez Vieyra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.4810},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

4 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, one reference added, typos corrected, small modifications done, to be published at Phys Rev Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-22T00:53:28.502Z