In the low-energy limit, non-relativistic particles with short-range interactions exhibit universal behavior that is largely independent of microscopic details. This universality is typically described by effective field theory, in which the two-body interaction is renormalized to a single parameter-the scattering length. For systems of identical bosons, the three-body problem reveals the Efimov effect, a novel phenomenon proposed that necessitates the introduction of an additional three-body parameter. However, the exact relation between this three-body parameter, the coupling constants in the effective field theory, and the binding energies of Efimov states remains unresolved. In this Letter, we address this question through a comprehensive analysis of the Skorniakov-Ter-Martirosian equation with a finite cutoff. We establish an exact renormalization relation for the three-body parameter and determine its connection to the energies of Efimov bound states. These results are validated through high-precision numerical simulations. We expect our findings to be of fundamental interest across various fields, including atomic, nuclear, condensed matter, and particle physics, and to have broad applications in both few-body and many-body physics.
A numerical study of the Faddeev equation for bosons is made with two-body interactions at or close to the Unitary limit. Separable interactions are obtained from phase-shifts defined by scattering length and effective range. In EFT-language this would correspond to NLO. Both ground and Efimov state energies are calculated. For effective ranges
r0>0 and rank-1 potentials the total energy
ET is found to converge with momentum cut-off
Λ for
Λ>∼10/r0 . In the Unitary limit (
1/a=r0=0) the energy does however diverge. It is shown (analytically) that in this case
ET=EuΛ2. Calculations give
Eu=−0.108 for the ground state and
Eu=−1.×10−4 for the single Efimov state found. The cut-off divergence is remedied by modifying the off-shell t-matrix by replacing the rank-1 by a rank-2 phase-shift equivalent potential. This is somewhat similar to the counterterm method suggested by Bedaque et al. This investigation is exploratory and does not refer to any specific physical system.
A numerical study of the Faddeev equation for bosons is made with two-body interactions at or close to the Unitary limit. Separable interactions are obtained from phase-shifts defined by scattering length and effective range. In EFT-language this would correspond to NLO. Both ground and Efimov state energies are calculated. For effective ranges
r0>0 and rank-1 potentials the total energy
ET is found to converge with momentum cut-off
Λ for
Λ>∼10/r0 . In the Unitary limit (
1/a=r0=0) the energy does however diverge. It is shown (analytically) that in this case
ET=EuΛ2. Calculations give
Eu=−0.108 for the ground state and
Eu=−1.×10−4 for the single Efimov state found. The cut-off divergence is remedied by modifying the off-shell t-matrix by replacing the rank-1 by a rank-2 phase-shift equivalent potential. This is somewhat similar to the counterterm method suggested by Bedaque et al. This investigation is exploratory and does not refer to any specific physical system.
We calculate shallow three-body bound states in the universal regime, defined by Efimov, with inclusion of both scattering length and effective range parameters. We find corrections to the universal scaling laws for large binding energies. For narrow resonances we find a distinct nonmonotonic behavior of the threshold at which the lowest Efimov trimer merges with the three-body continuum. The origin of the three-body parameter is related to the two-body atom-atom interactions in a physically clear model. Our results demonstrate that experimental information from narrow Feshbach resonances and/or mixed systems are of vital importance to pin down the relation of two- and three-body physics in atomic systems.
Continuum structures of three short-range interacting particles in a deformed external one-body field are investigated. We use the equivalent
d method employing noninteger dimension,
d, in a spherical calculation with a dimension-dependent angular momentum barrier. We focus on dimensions close to the critical dimension,
d=dE, between 2 and 3, defined by zero two-body energies, where the Efimov effect can occur. We design for this dimension region a schematic, long-distance realistic, square-well based, three-body spherical model, which is used to derive analytic expressions for the wave functions, scattering lengths, phase shifts, and elastic-scattering cross sections. The procedure and the results are universal, valid for all short-range potentials, and for large scattering lengths. We discuss the properties and validity of the derived expressions by means of the simplest system of three identical bosons. The derived expressions are particularly useful for very small energies, where full numerical calculations are often not feasible. For energies where the numerical calculations can be performed, a good agreement with the analytic results is found. These model results may be tested by scattering experiments for three particles in an equivalent external deformed oscillator potential. The cross sections all vanish in the zero-energy limit for
d<3 with definite
d-dependent power of energy.
Efimov states are a sequence of shallow three-body bound states that arise when the two-body scattering length is large. Efimov showed that the binding energies of these states can be calculated in terms of the scattering length and a three-body parameter by solving a transcendental equation involving a universal function of one variable. We calculate this universal function using effective field theory and use it to describe the three-body system of
4He atoms. We also extend Efimov's theory to include the effects of deep two-body bound states, which give widths to the Efimov states.