Essential and Discrete Spectra of the Three-Particle Schrödinger Operator on a Lattice

We consider the system of three quantum particles (two are bosons and the third is arbitrary) interacting by attractive pair contact potentials on a three-dimensional lattice. The essential spectrum is described. The existence of the Efimov effect is proved in the case where either two or three two-particle subsystems of the three-particle system have virtual levels at the left edge of the three-particle essential spectrum for zero total quasimomentum ($K=0$). We also show that for small values of the total quasimomentum ($K\ne 0$), the number of bound states is finite.