arXiv:1801.04663 · Physical Review A
Atom-dimer scattering in a heteronuclear mixture with a finite intraspecies scattering length
Chao Gao, Peng Zhang
Abstract
We study the three-body problem of two ultracold identical bosonic atoms (denoted by $B$) and one extra atom (denoted by $X$), where the scattering length ${a}_{BX}$ between each bosonic atom and atom $X$ is resonantly large and positive. We calculate the scattering length ${a}_{\mathrm{ad}}$ between one bosonic atom and the shallow dimer formed by the other bosonic atom and atom $X$, and investigate the effect induced by the interaction between the two bosonic atoms. We find that even if this interaction is weak (i.e., the corresponding scattering length ${a}_{BB}$ is of the same order of the van der Waals length ${r}_{\mathrm{vdW}}$ or even smaller), it can still induce a significant effect for the atom-dimer scattering length ${a}_{\mathrm{ad}}$. Explicitly, an atom-dimer scattering resonance can always occur when the value of ${a}_{BB}$ varies in the region with $|{a}_{BB}|\ensuremath{\lesssim}{r}_{\mathrm{vdW}}$. As a result, both the sign and the absolute value of ${a}_{\mathrm{ad}}$, as well as the behavior of the ${a}_{\mathrm{ad}}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{a}_{BX}$ function, depends sensitively on the exact value of ${a}_{BB}$. Our results show that, for a good quantitative theory, the intraspecies interaction is required to be taken into account for this heteronuclear system, even if this interaction is weak.