Unitarity potentials and neutron matter at the unitary limit


Abstract in English

We study the equation of state of neutron matter using a family of unitarity potentials all of which are constructed to have infinite $^1S_0$ scattering lengths $a_s$. For such system, a quantity of much interest is the ratio $xi=E_0/E_0^{free}$ where $E_0$ is the true ground-state energy of the system, and $E_0^{free}$ is that for the non-interacting system. In the limit of $a_sto pm infty$, often referred to as the unitary limit, this ratio is expected to approach a universal constant, namely $xisim 0.44(1)$. In the present work we calculate this ratio $xi$ using a family of hard-core square-well potentials whose $a_s$ can be exactly obtained, thus enabling us to have many potentials of different ranges and strengths, all with infinite $a_s$. We have also calculated $xi$ using a unitarity CDBonn potential obtained by slightly scaling its meson parameters. The ratios $xi$ given by these different unitarity potentials are all close to each other and also remarkably close to 0.44, suggesting that the above ratio $xi$ is indifferent to the details of the underlying interactions as long as they have infinite scattering length. A sum-rule and scaling constraint for the renormalized low-momentum interaction in neutron matter at the unitary limit is discussed.

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