Seminari INFN

The central three-body problem in the plane is integrable in the strong magnetic field limit.

by Francois Leyvraz (Instituto de Fisica, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)

Europe/Rome
Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G.Marconi)

Aula Conversi

Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G.Marconi

Description
The problem of N particles interacting through pairwise central forces is notoriously intractable for $N\geq3$. Some remarkable specific cases have been solved in one dimension. Here we show that the guiding center approximation---valid for charges moving in two dimensions in the limit of large constant magnetic fields---simplifies the three-body problem for an arbitrary interparticle interaction invariant under rotations and translations, making it solvable by quadratures. A spinorial representation for the system is introduced, which allows a visualization of its phase space as the corresponding Bloch sphere. Finally, a discussion of the quantization of the problem is presented.