Three-dimensional non-approximate Coulomb interaction between two trapped quantum particles

Sci Rep. 2023 Oct 24;13(1):18210. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-45234-9.

Abstract

The two trapped quantum particles interacting problem is generalized to three dimensions, and the exact Coulomb potential is used. The system is solved by expanding the wavefunction in terms of the isotropic harmonic oscillator eigenfunctions and Hydrogen atom eigenfunctions independently, showing that each one results in a prime approximation for different domains of the normalized coupling constant of the relative interactions, suggesting that the combination of the basis is enough to build a well-suited base for the non-approximate problem. The results are compared to previous works that use a model of approximate finite-rage soft-core interaction model of the problem to give insights into the many-body states of strongly correlated ultracold bosons and fermions. We conclude that the proposed three-dimensional approach facilitates the distinction between bosons and fermions while the solutions given by the expansions better define the behavior of the particles for repulsive potentials. In addition, we discuss the substantial differences between our work and the previous approximate model.