We study the self-adjoint Hamiltonian that models the quantum dynamics of a 1D three-body system consisting of a light particle interacting with two heavy ones through a zero-range force. For an attractive interaction we determine the behavior of the eigenvalues below the essential spectrum in the regime $\varepsilon\ll 1$, where $\varepsilon$ is proportional to the square root of the mass ratio. We show that the $n$-th eigenvalue behaves as $$E_{ n}(\varepsilon)=-\alpha^{ 2}+|\sigma_{ n}|\,\alpha^{ 2}\varepsilon^{ 2/3}+O(\varepsilon)\,, $$ where $\alpha$ is a negative constant that explicitly relates to the physical parameters and $\sigma_{ n}$ is either the $n$-th extremum or the $n$-th zero of the Airy function Ai, depending on the kind (respectively, bosons or fermions) of the two heavy particles. Additionally, we prove that the essential spectrum coincides with the half-line $\left[-\frac{ \alpha^2}{ 4+\varepsilon^{ 2}}\,,+\infty\right)$.
Categories: math-ph math.MP math.SP