Parabolic-hyperspherical approach to the fragmentation of three-particle Coulomb systems

In this work the three-body Coulomb continuum problem is reformulated in a set of parabolic-hyperspherical coordinates. It is shown how this procedure yields additional information on the angular and radial behavior of correlated three-body Coulomb continuum wave functions. For two electrons receding from a nucleus it is shown that three-body coupling is essential in describing the dependence of the fragmentation dynamics on the ratio of the. electronic distances from the nucleus whereas the angular distribution of these electrons is less sensitive to this coupling. The spin asymmetry in the total cross section for electron-impact ionization of atomic hydrogen is analyzed and found to be sensitive to the radial correlation of the outgoing electrons.