Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1011.2453 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Analytic harmonic approach to theN-body problem

J. R. Armstrong, Nikolaj Thomas Zinner, D. V. Fedorov, A. S. Jensen

Published Feb 18, 2011• 48 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider an analytic way to make the interacting N -body problem tractable by using harmonic oscillators in place of the relevant two-body interactions. The two-body terms of the N -body Hamiltonian are approximated by considering the energy spectrum and radius of the relevant two-body problem which gives frequency, centre position, and zero point energy of the corresponding harmonic oscillator. Adding external harmonic one-body terms, we proceed to solve the full quantum mechanical N -body problem analytically for arbitrary masses. Energy eigenvalues, eigenmodes, and correlation functions like density matrices can then be computed analytically. As a first application of our formalism, we consider the N -boson problem in two and three dimensions where we fit the two-body interactions to agree with the well-known zero-range model for two particles in a harmonic trap. Subsequently, condensate fractions, spectra, radii, and eigenmodes are discussed as a function of dimension, boson number N , and scattering length obtained in the zero-range model. We find that energies, radii, and condensate fraction increase with scattering length as well as boson number, while radii decrease with increasing boson number. Our formalism is completely general and can also be applied to fermions, Bose–Fermi mixtures, and to more exotic geometries.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/44/5/055303

Related papers

Exact quantum solutions of extraordinary N -body problems

D. Lynden-Bell, R. M. Lynden-Bell

The wave functions of boson and fermion gases are known even when the particles have harmonic interactions. Here we generalize these results by solving exactly the N–body Schrödinger equation for potentials V that can be any function of the sum of the squares of the distances of the particles from one another in three dimensions. For the harmonic case that function is linear in r2. Explicit N–body solutions are given when U(r) = –2Mh–2V(r) = 𝛇r–1 – 𝛇2r–2. Here M is the sum of the masses and r2 = 1/2 M–2ΣmImJ(xI – xJ)2. For general U(r) the solution is given in terms of the one– or two–body problem with potential U(r) in three dimensions. The degeneracies of the levels are derived for distinguishable particles, for bosons of spin zero and for spin 1/2 fermions. The latter involve significant combinatorial analysis which may have application to the shell model of atomic nuclei. For large N the fermionic ground state gives the binding energy of a degenerate white dwarf star treated as a giant atom with an N–body wave function. The N–body forces involved in these extraordinary N–body problems are not the usual sums of two–body interactions, but nor are forces between quarks or molecules. Bose–Einstein condensation of particles in three dimensions interacting via these strange potentials can be treated by this method.

arXiv:cond-mat/9904019•Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences•Sep 8, 1999•11 citations

Many-particle systems in one dimension in the harmonic approximation

J. R. Armstrong, Nikolaj Thomas Zinner, D. V. Fedorov +1 more

We consider the energetics and structural properties of a many-particle system in one dimension with pairwise contact interactions confined in a parabolic external potential. To render the problem analytically solvable, we use the harmonic approximation scheme at the level of the Hamiltonian. We investigate the scaling with particle number of the ground-state energies for systems consisting of identical bosons or fermions. We then proceed to focus on bosonic systems and make a detailed comparison with known exact results in the absence of the parabolic external trap for three-body systems. We also consider the thermodynamics of the harmonic model, which turns out to be similar for bosons and fermions due to the lack of degeneracy in one dimension.

arXiv:1205.0717•Physica Scripta•Nov 1, 2012•7 citations

Three-body scattering area for particles with infinite or zero scattering length in two dimensions

Junjie Liang, Shina Tan

We derive the asymptotic expansions of the wave function of three particles having equal mass with finite-range interactions and infinite or zero two-dimensional scattering length colliding at zero energy and zero orbital angular momentum, from which a three-body parameter $D$ is defined. The dimension of $D$ is length squared, and we call $D$ three-body scattering area. We find that the ground-state energy per particle of a zero-temperature dilute Bose gas with these interactions is approximately $\frac{{\ensuremath{\hbar}}^{2}D}{6m}{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{2}$, where $\ensuremath{\rho}$ is the number density of the bosons and $m$ is the mass of each boson. Such a zero-temperature Bose gas is stable at $D>0$ in the thermodynamic limit, and metastable at $D<0$ in the isotropic harmonic trap if the number of bosons is less than ${N}_{\mathrm{cr}}\ensuremath{\approx}3.6413\sqrt{\frac{\ensuremath{\hbar}}{m\ensuremath{\omega}|D|}\phantom{{}^{1}}}$, where $\ensuremath{\omega}$ is the angular frequency of the harmonic trap. If the two-body interaction supports bound states, $D$ typically acquires a negative imaginary part, and we find the relation between this imaginary part and the amplitudes of the pair-boson production processes. We derive a formula for the three-body recombination rate constant of the many-boson system in terms of the imaginary part of $D$.

arXiv:2402.02202•Physical Review A•Jun 24, 2024•2 citations

Construction of Analytical Many-Body Wave Functions for Correlated Bosons in a Harmonic Trap

Ioannis Brouzos, Peter Schmelcher

We develop an analytical many-body wave function to accurately describe the crossover of a one-dimensional bosonic system from weak to strong interactions in a harmonic trap. The explicit wave function, which is based on the exact two-body states, consists of symmetric multiple products of the corresponding parabolic cylinder functions and respects the analytically known limits of zero and infinite repulsion for arbitrary number of particles. For intermediate interaction strengths we demonstrate that the energies, as well as the reduced densities of first and second order, are in excellent agreement with large scale numerical calculations.

arXiv:1108.1354•Physical Review Letters•Jan 24, 2012•47 citations

Effective renormalized multi-body interactions of harmonically confined ultracold neutral bosons

P R Johnson, D. Blume, Xiangyu Yin +2 more

We calculate the renormalized effective two-, three- and four-body interactions for N neutral ultracold bosons in the ground state of an isotropic harmonic trap, assuming two-body interactions modeled with the combination of a zero-range and energy-dependent pseudopotential. We work to third-order in the scattering length a t (0) defined at zero collision energy, which is necessary to obtain both the leading-order effective four-body interaction and consistently include corrections for realistic two-body interactions. The leading-order, effective three- and four-body interaction energies are and , where ω and σ ( ω ) are the harmonic oscillator frequency and length, respectively, and energies are in units of ℏ ω . The one-standard deviation error ±0.0001 for the third-order coefficient in U 3 ( ω ) is due to numerical uncertainty in estimating a slowly converging sum; the other two coefficients are either analytically or numerically exact. The effective three- and four-body interactions can play an important role in the dynamics of tightly confined and strongly correlated systems. We also performed numerical simulations for a finite-range (FR) boson–boson potential, and it was comparison to the zero-range predictions which revealed that finite-range effects must be taken into account for a realistic third-order treatment. In particular, we show that the energy-dependent pseudopotential accurately captures, through third order, the finite-range physics, and in combination with the multi-body effective interactions gives excellent agreement with the numerical simulations, validating our theoretical analysis and predictions.

arXiv:1201.2962•New Journal of Physics•May 25, 2012•29 citations

Analytic solutions of topologically disjoint systems

J R Armstrong, Artem G. Volosniev, D V Fedorov +2 more

We describe a procedure to solve an up to problem where the particles are separated topologically in N groups with at most two particles in each. Arbitrary interactions are allowed between the (two) particles within one group. All other interactions are approximated by harmonic oscillator potentials. The problem is first reduced to an analytically solvable N -body problem and N independent two-body problems. We calculate analytically spectra, wave functions, and normal modes for both the inverse square and delta-function two-body interactions. In particular, we calculate separation energies between two strings of particles. We find that the string separation energy increases with N and interaction strength.

arXiv:1411.3347•Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical•Jan 28, 2015•27 citations
We consider an analytic way to make the interacting N -body problem tractable by using harmonic oscillators in place of the relevant two-body interactions. The two-body terms of the N -body Hamiltonian are approximated by considering the energy spectrum and radius of the relevant two-body problem which gives frequency, centre position, and zero point energy of the corresponding harmonic oscillator. Adding external harmonic one-body terms, we proceed to solve the full quantum mechanical N -body problem analytically for arbitrary masses. Energy eigenvalues, eigenmodes, and correlation functions like density matrices can then be computed analytically. As a first application of our formalism, we consider the N -boson problem in two and three dimensions where we fit the two-body interactions to agree with the well-known zero-range model for two particles in a harmonic trap. Subsequently, condensate fractions, spectra, radii, and eigenmodes are discussed as a function of dimension, boson number N , and scattering length obtained in the zero-range model. We find that energies, radii, and condensate fraction increase with scattering length as well as boson number, while radii decrease with increasing boson number. Our formalism is completely general and can also be applied to fermions, Bose–Fermi mixtures, and to more exotic geometries.
The wave functions of boson and fermion gases are known even when the particles have harmonic interactions. Here we generalize these results by solving exactly the N–body Schrödinger equation for potentials V that can be any function of the sum of the squares of the distances of the particles from one another in three dimensions. For the harmonic case that function is linear in r2. Explicit N–body solutions are given when U(r) = –2Mh–2V(r) = 𝛇r–1 – 𝛇2r–2. Here M is the sum of the masses and r2 = 1/2 M–2ΣmImJ(xI – xJ)2. For general U(r) the solution is given in terms of the one– or two–body problem with potential U(r) in three dimensions. The degeneracies of the levels are derived for distinguishable particles, for bosons of spin zero and for spin 1/2 fermions. The latter involve significant combinatorial analysis which may have application to the shell model of atomic nuclei. For large N the fermionic ground state gives the binding energy of a degenerate white dwarf star treated as a giant atom with an N–body wave function. The N–body forces involved in these extraordinary N–body problems are not the usual sums of two–body interactions, but nor are forces between quarks or molecules. Bose–Einstein condensation of particles in three dimensions interacting via these strange potentials can be treated by this method.
We consider the energetics and structural properties of a many-particle system in one dimension with pairwise contact interactions confined in a parabolic external potential. To render the problem analytically solvable, we use the harmonic approximation scheme at the level of the Hamiltonian. We investigate the scaling with particle number of the ground-state energies for systems consisting of identical bosons or fermions. We then proceed to focus on bosonic systems and make a detailed comparison with known exact results in the absence of the parabolic external trap for three-body systems. We also consider the thermodynamics of the harmonic model, which turns out to be similar for bosons and fermions due to the lack of degeneracy in one dimension.
We derive the asymptotic expansions of the wave function of three particles having equal mass with finite-range interactions and infinite or zero two-dimensional scattering length colliding at zero energy and zero orbital angular momentum, from which a three-body parameter DDD is defined. The dimension of DDD is length squared, and we call DDD three-body scattering area. We find that the ground-state energy per particle of a zero-temperature dilute Bose gas with these interactions is approximately $\frac{{\ensuremath{\hbar}}^{2}D}{6m}{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{2}$, where $\ensuremath{\rho}$ is the number density of the bosons and mmm is the mass of each boson. Such a zero-temperature Bose gas is stable at D>0D>0D>0 in the thermodynamic limit, and metastable at D<0D<0D<0 in the isotropic harmonic trap if the number of bosons is less than ${N}_{\mathrm{cr}}\ensuremath{\approx}3.6413\sqrt{\frac{\ensuremath{\hbar}}{m\ensuremath{\omega}|D|}\phantom{{}^{1}}}$, where $\ensuremath{\omega}$ is the angular frequency of the harmonic trap. If the two-body interaction supports bound states, DDD typically acquires a negative imaginary part, and we find the relation between this imaginary part and the amplitudes of the pair-boson production processes. We derive a formula for the three-body recombination rate constant of the many-boson system in terms of the imaginary part of DDD.
We develop an analytical many-body wave function to accurately describe the crossover of a one-dimensional bosonic system from weak to strong interactions in a harmonic trap. The explicit wave function, which is based on the exact two-body states, consists of symmetric multiple products of the corresponding parabolic cylinder functions and respects the analytically known limits of zero and infinite repulsion for arbitrary number of particles. For intermediate interaction strengths we demonstrate that the energies, as well as the reduced densities of first and second order, are in excellent agreement with large scale numerical calculations.
We calculate the renormalized effective two-, three- and four-body interactions for N neutral ultracold bosons in the ground state of an isotropic harmonic trap, assuming two-body interactions modeled with the combination of a zero-range and energy-dependent pseudopotential. We work to third-order in the scattering length a t (0) defined at zero collision energy, which is necessary to obtain both the leading-order effective four-body interaction and consistently include corrections for realistic two-body interactions. The leading-order, effective three- and four-body interaction energies are and , where ω and σ ( ω ) are the harmonic oscillator frequency and length, respectively, and energies are in units of ℏ ω . The one-standard deviation error ±0.0001 for the third-order coefficient in U 3 ( ω ) is due to numerical uncertainty in estimating a slowly converging sum; the other two coefficients are either analytically or numerically exact. The effective three- and four-body interactions can play an important role in the dynamics of tightly confined and strongly correlated systems. We also performed numerical simulations for a finite-range (FR) boson–boson potential, and it was comparison to the zero-range predictions which revealed that finite-range effects must be taken into account for a realistic third-order treatment. In particular, we show that the energy-dependent pseudopotential accurately captures, through third order, the finite-range physics, and in combination with the multi-body effective interactions gives excellent agreement with the numerical simulations, validating our theoretical analysis and predictions.
We describe a procedure to solve an up to problem where the particles are separated topologically in N groups with at most two particles in each. Arbitrary interactions are allowed between the (two) particles within one group. All other interactions are approximated by harmonic oscillator potentials. The problem is first reduced to an analytically solvable N -body problem and N independent two-body problems. We calculate analytically spectra, wave functions, and normal modes for both the inverse square and delta-function two-body interactions. In particular, we calculate separation energies between two strings of particles. We find that the string separation energy increases with N and interaction strength.