Ion-atom-atom three-body recombination: from cold chemistry to plasma physics*

This work presents a study on three-body recombination involving an ion and two atoms toward forming molecular ions and molecules in a wide range of energies and systems, from cold chemistry systems to plasma-relevant scenarios. In particular, we calculate the three-body recombination rate via classical trajectory calculations in hyperspherical coordinates. Our results show that, independently of the nature of the system at hand, there are two very distinct dynamical regimes. First, the low-energy regime dominated the long-range tail of the interaction potential, and the second one, the high-energy regime, dominated by the short-range details of the potential. The transition between these two regimes occurs when the collision energy is of the same order as the dissociation energy of the molecular ion. Thus, explaining why threshold laws are still applicable to room temperature.