Three-body halos. II. From two- to three-body asymptotics

Abstract

The large distance behavior of weakly bound three-body systems is investigated. The Schr\"odinger equation and the Faddeev equations are reformulated by an expansion in eigenfunctions of the angular part of a corresponding operator. The resulting coupled set of effective radial equations are then derived. Both two- and three-body asymptotic behavior are possible and their relative importance is studied for systems where subsystems may be bound. The system of two nucleons outside a core is studied numerically in detail and the character of possible halo structure is pointed out and investigated.