Trap-induced atom-ion complexes: a time-independent approach
Abstract
A trapped ion immersed in a neutral bath shows long-lived atom-ion complexes that significantly alter its chemical properties, and, thus the ion stability. In this work, we present a general study of trapped ion-atom scattering with the ion modeled as a charge distribution defined by the spatial extent of its ground-state wavefunction. After mapping the time-dependent problem onto a time-independent framework, we investigate the role of the trap, the atomic species, atom-ion interaction, and collision energy in shaping the chaotic dynamics of the system. We find that the probability of atom-ion complex formation directly measures its chaoticity. Therefore, our results establish a clear relationship between the emergence of chaotic scattering and the presence of ion-atom complexes.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.03939,
title = {Trap-induced atom-ion complexes: a time-independent approach},
author = {Zhongqi Liang and Ruiren Shi and Jesús Pérez-Ríos},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.03939},
year = {2025}
}