No Arabic abstract
Universal behaviour in few-bosons systems close to the unitary limit, where two bosons become unbound, has been intensively investigated in recent years both experimentally and theoretically. In this particular region, called the unitary window, details of the inter-particle interactions are not important and observables, such as binding energies, can be characterized by a few parameters. With an increasing number of particles the short-range repulsion, present in all atomic, molecular or nuclear interactions, gradually induces deviations from the universal behaviour. In the present letter we discuss for the first time a simple way of incorporating non-universal behaviour through one specific parameter which controls the smooth transition of the system from universal to non-universal regime. Using a system of $N$ helium atoms as an example we calculate their ground state energies as trajectories within the unitary window and also show that the control parameters can be used to determine the energy per particle in homogeneous systems when $N rightarrow infty$.
The universal behavior of a three-boson system close to the unitary limit is encoded in a simple dependence of many observables in terms of few parameters. For example the product of the three-body parameter $kappa_*$ and the two-body scattering length $a$, $kappa_* a$ depends on the angle $xi$ defined by $E_3/E_2=tan^2xi$. A similar dependence is observed in the ratio $a_{AD}/a$ with $a_{AD}$ the boson-dimer scattering length. We use a two-parameter potential to determine this simple behavior and, as an application, to compute $a_{AD}$ for the case of three $^4$He atoms.
Using potential models we analyze range corrections to the universal law dictated by the Efimov theory of three bosons. In the case of finite-range interactions we have observed that, at first order, it is necessary to supplement the theory with one finite-range parameter, $Gamma_n^3$, for each specific $n$-level [Kievsky and Gattobigio, Phys. Rev. A {bf 87}, 052719 (2013)]. The value of $Gamma_n^3$ depends on the way the potentials is changed to tune the scattering length toward the unitary limit. In this work we analyze a particular path in which the length $r_B=a-a_B$, measuring the difference between the two-body scattering length $a$ and the energy scattering length $a_B$, results almost constant. Analyzing systems with very different scales, as atomic or nuclear systems, we observe that the finite-range parameter remains almost constant along the path with a numerical value of $Gamma_0^3approx 0.87$ for the ground state level. This observation suggests the possibility of constructing a single universal function that incorporate finite-range effects for this class of paths. The result is used to estimate the three-body parameter $kappa_*$ in the case of real atomic systems brought to the unitary limit thought a broad Feshbach resonances. Furthermore, we show that the finite-range parameter can be put in relation with the two-body contact $C_2$ at the unitary limit.
Two-, three-, and four-boson systems are studied close to the unitary limit using potential models constructed to reproduce the minimal information given by the two-body scattering length $a$ and the two-body binding energy or virtual state energy $E_2$. The particular path used to reach the unitary limit is given by varying the potential strength. In this way the energy spectrum in the three- and four-boson systems is computed. The lowest energy states show finite-range effects absorbed in the construction of level functions that can be used to study real systems. Higher energy levels are free from finite-range effects, therefore the corresponding level functions tend to the zero-range universal function. Using this property a zero-range equation for the four-boson system is proposed and the four-boson universal function is computed.
A recent rejuvenation of experimental and theoretical interest in the physics of few- body systems has provided deep, fundamental insights into a broad range of problems. Few-body physics is a cross-cutting discipline not restricted to conventional subject ar- eas such as nuclear physics or atomic or molecular physics. To a large degree, the recent explosion of interest in this subject has been sparked by dramatic enhancements of experimental capabilities in ultracold atomic systems over the past decade, which now permit atoms and molecules to be explored deep in the quantum mechanical limit with controllable two-body interactions. This control, typically enabled by magnetic or electromagnetically-dressed Fano-Feshbach resonances, allows in particular access to the range of universal few-body physics, where two-body scattering lengths far exceed all other length scales in the problem. The Efimov effect, where 3 particles experienc- ing short-range interactions can counterintuitively exhibit an infinite number of bound or quasi-bound energy levels, is the most famous example of universality. Tremendous progress in the field of universal Efimov physics has taken off, driven particularly by a combination of experimental and theoretical studies in the past decade, and prior to the first observation in 2006, by an extensive set of theoretical studies dating back to 1970. Because experimental observations of Efimov physics have usually relied on resonances or interference phenomena in three-body recombination, this connects naturally with the processes of molecule formation in a low temperature gas of atoms or nucleons, and more generally with N-body recombination processes. Some other topics not closely related to the Efimov effect are also reviewed in this article, including ...
The open dynamics of quantum many-body systems involve not only the exchange of energy, but also of other conserved quantities, such as momentum. This leads to additional decoherence, which may have a profound impact in the dynamics. Motivated by this, we consider a many-body system subject to total momentum dephasing and show that under very general conditions this leads to a diffusive component in the dynamics of any local density, even far from equilibrium. Such component will usually have an intricate interplay with the unitary dynamics. To illustrate this, we consider the case of a superfluid and show that momentum dephasing introduces a damping in the sound-wave dispersion relation, similar to that predicted by the Navier-Stokes equation for ordinary fluids. Finally, we also study the effects of dephasing in linear response, and show that it leads to a universal additive contribution to the diffusion constant, which can be obtained from a Kubo formula.