In groundbreaking new work published as a Phys Rev A Letter, we applied our ab initio many-body theory to study trends in positron binding across molecular families, notably halogenated hydrocarbons. For chlorinated molecules excellent agreement with measurements by the UCSD Surko group are found. Predictions for brominated and fluorinated molecules are presented. Overall, we show that global molecular properties are not universal predictors of positron-molecule binding energies, and we explain the importance of the potential anisotropy and the density of electron states.
J. P. Cassidy, J. Hofierka, B. Cunningham, C. M. Rawlins, C. H. Patterson and D. G. Green, Phys. Rev. A Letter L 109, L040801 (2024) [Open Access]
