Abstract. We prove a limiting absorption principle at zero energy for two-body Schrödinger operators with long-range potentials having a positive virial at infinity. More precisely, we establish a complete asymptotic expansion of the resolvent in weighted spaces when the spectral parameter varies in cones; one of the two branches of boundary for the cones being given by the positive real axis. The principal tools are absence of eigenvalue at zero, singular Mourre theory and microlocal estimates.

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We develop an extension of the abstract Mourre theory which consecutively is used to prove spectral properties of various systems coupled to a massless bosonic field. Our models include the spin-boson model and the standard model of quantum electrodynamics for a non-relativistic atom considered recently in [8] and [3] respectively.

For a class of negative slowly decaying potentials, including V (x) := −γ |x| −μ with 0 < μ < 2, we study the quantum mechanical scattering theory in the low-energy regime. Using appropriate modifiers of the Isozaki-Kitada type we show that scattering theory is well behaved on the whole continuous spectrum of the Hamiltonian, including the energy 0. We show that the modified scattering matrices S(λ) are welldefined and strongly continuous down to the zero energy threshold. Similarly, we prove that the modified wave matrices and generalized eigenfunctions are norm continuous down to the zero energy if we use appropriate weighted spaces. These results are used to derive (oscillatory) asymptotics of the standard short-range and Dollard type S-matrices for the subclasses of potentials where both kinds of S-matrices are defined. For potentials whose leading part is −γ |x| −μ we show that the location of singularities of the kernel of S(λ) experiences an abrupt change from passing from positive energies λ to the limiting energy λ = 0. This change corresponds to the behaviour of the classical orbits. Under stronger conditions one can extract the leading term of the asymptotics of the kernel of S(λ) at its singularities.

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