No Arabic abstract
In 1963 a partial differential equation with a convolution non-linearity was introduced in connection with a quantum mechanical many-body problem, namely the gas of bosonic particles. This equation is mathematically interesting for several reasons. (1) Although the equation was expected to be valid only for small values of the parameters, further investigation showed that predictions based on the equation agree well over the {it entire range} of parameters with what is expected to be true for the solution of the true many-body problem. (2) The novel nonlinearity is easy to state but seems to have almost no literature up to now. (3) The earlier work did not prove existence and uniqueness of a solution, which we provide here along with properties of the solution such as decay at infinity.
In a recent paper we studied an equation (called the simple equation) introduced by one of us in 1963 for an approximate correlation function associated to the ground state of an interacting Bose gas. Solving the equation yields a relation between the density $rho$ of the gas and the energy per particle. Our construction of solutions gave a well-defined function $rho(e)$ for the density as a function of the energy $e$. We had conjectured that $rho(e)$ is a strictly monotone increasing function, so that it can be inverted to yield the strictly monotone increasing function $e(rho)$. We had also conjectured that $rho e(rho)$ is convex as a function of $rho$. We prove both conjectures here for small densities, the context in which they have the most physical relevance, and the monotonicity also for large densities. Both conjectures are grounded in the underlying physics, and their proof provides further mathematical evidence for the validity of the assumptions underlying the derivation of the simple equation, at least for low or high densities, if not intermediate densities, although the equation gives surprisingly good predictions for all densities $rho$. Another problem left open in our previous paper was whether the simple equation could be used to compute accurate predictions of observables other than the energy. Here, we provide a recipe for computing predictions for any one- or two-particle observables for the ground state of the Bose gas. We focus on the condensate fraction and the momentum distribution, and show that they have the same low density asymptotic behavior as that predicted for the Bose gas. Along with the computation of the low density energy of the simple equation in our previous paper, this shows that the simple equation reproduces the known and conjectured properties of the Bose gas at low densities.
The equation of state of a weakly interacting two-dimensional Bose gas is studied at zero temperature by means of quantum Monte Carlo methods. Going down to as low densities as na^2 ~ 10^{-100} permits us for the first time to obtain agreement on beyond mean-field level between predictions of perturbative methods and direct many-body numerical simulation, thus providing an answer to the fundamental question of the equation of state of a two-dimensional dilute Bose gas in the universal regime (i.e. entirely described by the gas parameter na^2). We also show that the measure of the frequency of a breathing collective oscillation in a trap at very low densities can be used to test the universal equation of state of a two-dimensional Bose gas.
Understanding the rich behavior that emerges from systems of interacting quantum particles, such as electrons in materials, nucleons in nuclei or neutron stars, the quark-gluon plasma, and superfluid liquid helium, requires investigation of systems that are clean, accessible, and have tunable parameters. Ultracold quantum gases offer tremendous promise for this application largely due to an unprecedented control over interactions. Specifically, $a$, the two-body scattering length that characterizes the interaction strength, can be tuned to any value. This offers prospects for experimental access to regimes where the behavior is not well understood because interactions are strong, atom-atom correlations are important, mean-field theory is inadequate, and equilibrium may not be reached or perhaps does not even exist. Of particular interest is the unitary gas, where $a$ is infinite, and where many aspects of the system are universal in that they depend only on the particle density and quantum statistics. While the unitary Fermi gas has been the subject of intense experimental and theoretical investigation, the degenerate unitary Bose gas has generally been deemed experimentally inaccessible because of three-body loss rates that increase dramatically with increasing $a$. Here, we investigate dynamics of a unitary Bose gas for timescales that are short compared to the loss. We find that the momentum distribution of the unitary Bose gas evolves on timescales fast compared to losses, and that both the timescale for this evolution and the limiting shape of the momentum distribution are consistent with universal scaling with density. This work demonstrates that a unitary Bose gas can be created and probed dynamically, and thus opens the door for further exploration of this novel strongly interacting quantum liquid.
We report spectroscopic observation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic Bose gas. Polarons are created by excitation of Rydberg atoms as impurities in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate. They are distinguished from previously studied polarons by macroscopic occupation of bound molecular states that arise from scattering of the weakly bound Rydberg electron from ground-state atoms. The absence of a $p$-wave resonance in the low-energy electron-atom scattering in Sr introduces a universal behavior in the Rydberg spectral lineshape and in scaling of the spectral width (narrowing) with the Rydberg principal quantum number, $n$. Spectral features are described with a functional determinant approach (FDA) that solves an extended Fr{o}hlich Hamiltonian for a mobile impurity in a Bose gas. Excited states of polyatomic Rydberg molecules (trimers, tetrameters, and pentamers) are experimentally resolved and accurately reproduced with FDA.
We investigate the trion binding energy in a three-dimensional semiconductor, with bare Coulomb interaction between charges, and effective mass approximation for the electron and hole dispersion relations. This is done by making use of a previously proposed exact method for the three-body problem. The calculations cover the complete range of electron-to-hole mass ratio. We find a perfect agreement with existing variational calculations. Investigating the small and large mass ratio regimes, we build a three parameters interpolating formula for the trion binding energy $E_b(r)$ in terms of the exciton binding energy, where $r$ is the electron to exciton mass ratio. This formula $E_b(r)=0.71347-0.11527 ,r -0.18580, sqrt{1-r},$, in atomic units, is in full agreement, within our precision, with our numerical results over the complete range of mass ratio.