A recent rejuvenation of experimental and theoretical interest in the physics of few- body systems has provided deep, fundamental insights into a broad range of problems. Few-body physics is a cross-cutting discipline not restricted to conventional subject ar- eas such as nuclear physics or atomic or molecular physics. To a large degree, the recent explosion of interest in this subject has been sparked by dramatic enhancements of experimental capabilities in ultracold atomic systems over the past decade, which now permit atoms and molecules to be explored deep in the quantum mechanical limit with controllable two-body interactions. This control, typically enabled by magnetic or electromagnetically-dressed Fano-Feshbach resonances, allows in particular access to the range of universal few-body physics, where two-body scattering lengths far exceed all other length scales in the problem. The Efimov effect, where 3 particles experienc- ing short-range interactions can counterintuitively exhibit an infinite number of bound or quasi-bound energy levels, is the most famous example of universality. Tremendous progress in the field of universal Efimov physics has taken off, driven particularly by a combination of experimental and theoretical studies in the past decade, and prior to the first observation in 2006, by an extensive set of theoretical studies dating back to 1970. Because experimental observations of Efimov physics have usually relied on resonances or interference phenomena in three-body recombination, this connects naturally with the processes of molecule formation in a low temperature gas of atoms or nucleons, and more generally with N-body recombination processes. Some other topics not closely related to the Efimov effect are also reviewed in this article, including ...Comment: review articl

Positronium and Muonium are purely leptonic atoms and hence free of an internal sub-structure. This qualifies them as potentially well suited systems to probe the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model. We hence carry out a comprehensive study of the sensitivity of current Positronium and Muonium precision spectroscopy to several new physics scenarios. By taking properly into account existing experimental and astrophysical probes, we define clear experimental targets to probe new physics via precise spectroscopy. For Positronium we find that, in order for the spectroscopy bounds to reach a sensitivity comparable to the electron gyromagnetic factor, an improvement of roughly five orders of magnitude from state-of-the-art precision is required, which would be a challenge based on current technology. More promising is instead the potential reach of Muonium spectroscopy: in the next few years experiments like Mu-MASS at PSI will probe new regions of the parameter space testing the existence of medium/short range (MeV and above) spin-dependent and spin-independent dark forces between electrons and muons.

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Recent data have determined that the structure of the high-pressure phase of solid oxygen consists of clusters composed of four O 2 molecules. This finding has opened the question about the nature of the intermolecular interactions within the molecular oxygen tetramer. We use multiconfigurational ab initio calculations to obtain an adequate characterization of the ground singlet state of (O 2 ) 4 , which is compatible with the nonmagnetic character of the phase. In contrast to previous suggestions implying covalent bonding, we show that (O 2 ) 4 is a van der Waals-like cluster where exchange interactions preferentially stabilize the singlet state. Nevertheless, as the cluster shrinks, there is an extra stabilization due to many-body interactions, i.e., an incipient chemical bonding that just yields a softening of the repulsive wall. We show that these findings can be used to model the intra-and intercluster distances of -O 2 observed in the lower-pressure range and are consistent with inelastic x-ray measurements of O 2 K-edge excitations.

The collision dynamics of 17 O 2 ( 3 Σ − g ) + 17 O 2 ( 3 Σ − g ) in the presence of a magnetic field is studied within the close-coupling formalism in the range between 10 nK and 50 mK. A recent global ab initio potential energy surface (PES) is employed and its effect on the dynamics is analyzed and compared with previous calculations where an experimentally derived PES was used [New J. Phys 11, 055021 (2009)]. In contrast to the results using the older PES, magnetic field dependence of the low-field-seeking state in the ultracold regime is characterized by quite a large background scattering length, a bg , and, in addition, cross sections exhibit broad and pronounced Feshbach resonances. The marked resonance structure is somewhat surprising considering the influence of inelastic scattering, but it can be explained by resorting to the analytical van der Waals theory, where the short range amplitude of the entrance channel wave function is enhanced by the large a bg . This strong sensitivity to the short range of the ab initio PES persists up to relatively high energies (10 mK). After this study and despite quantitative predictions are very difficult, it can be concluded that the ratio between elastic and spin relaxation scattering is generally small, except for magnetic fields which are either low or close to an asymmetric Fano-type resonance. Some general trends found here, such as a large density of quasibound states and a propensity towards large scattering lengths, could be also characteristic of other anisotropic molecule-molecule systems.

Motivation: The spectroscopy of diatomic molecules is an important research area in chemical physics due to its relevance in astrochemistry, combustion chemistry, and ultracold physics. However, there is currently no database where the user can easily retrieve, in a useful format, the spectroscopic constants of a given molecule. A similar situation appears concerning the vibrational Franck-Condon factors for diatomic molecules, a crucial parameter to infer laser cooling prospects for molecules. To address this problem, and inspired by the idea that data should be open and freely accessible, we have developed a user-friendly website (https ://rios.mp.fhi.mpg.de) where the user can retrieve spectroscopic constants and Franck-Condon factors in useful formats. Implementation: In this database, the spectroscopic constants of the ground states and first excited states of the diatomic molecules are accessible from the website and can be retrieved in readable formats. The website is implemented within the LAMP web service stacks. In particular, using Linux as the operative system, Apache as the HTTP Server, MySQL as the database management system, and PHP as the programming language for the web. Furthermore, the user can register and upload new data. This project is licensed under the Free-Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) license Apache License 2.0 which allows free and open access to the codes as well as efficient collaboration in the maintenance of the software. Conclusions and impact: The present data-driven website presents essential information in a user-friendly manner and may help the chemical physics community to identify molecules that should be explored through spectroscopic techniques.

We report new measurements of the positronium (Ps) 2 3 S1 → 2 3 PJ fine-structure intervals, ν J (J = 0, 1, 2). In the experiments, Ps atoms, optically excited to the radiatively metastable 2 3 S1 level, flew through microwave radiation fields tuned to drive transitions to the short-lived 2 3 PJ levels, which were detected via the time spectrum of subsequent ground-state Ps annihilation radiation. Both the ν 1 and ν 2 line shapes were found to be asymmetric, which, in the absence of a complete line-shape model, prevents accurate determination of these fine-structure intervals. Conversely, the ν 0 line shape did not exhibit any significant asymmetry; the observed interval, however, was found to disagree with QED theory by 4.2 standard deviations.

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