On Efimov's effect in a system of three identical quantum particles (Q1326927)

A pathology in quantum three-particle systems is Efimov's effect (discovered 1970): even if none of two-particle subsystems have bound states, there may be infinitely many bound states of three particles provided some resonance condition is fulfilled. Bose statistics is essential, too. Lakaev considers a system of three bosons on a three-dimensional lattice (replacing the continuum), interacting via pair potentials of ``zero range'', and presents another proof of Efimov's effect in this discrete setting. It is hard to see why it should be of interest from the physical point of view, though. The lattice system is simpler but also more complicated because the center-of-mass motion can not longer be separated from the internal motion. Instead, one gets a direct integral of energy operators \(H(K)\) with different total momentum \(K\). The main result is that, for \(K\) in some neighborhood of \(K_0\) (related to the minimum of the total kinetic energy), the operator \(H(K)\) has infinitely many eigenvalues depending on \(K\).