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arXiv:2101.11903 · Frontiers in Physics

Low-Density Neutron Matter and the Unitary Limit

Isaac Vidaña

Published May 10, 2021• 16 citations
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Abstract

We review the properties of neutron matter in the low-density regime. In particular, we revise its ground state energy and the superfluid neutron pairing gap and analyze their evolution from the weak to the strong coupling regime. The calculations of the energy and the pairing gap are performed, respectively, within the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) approach of nuclear matter and the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory using the chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction of Entem and Machleidt at N3LO and the Argonne V18 phenomenological potential. Results for the energy are also shown for a simple Gaussian potential with a strength and range adjusted to reproduce the1S0neutron-neutron scattering length and effective range. Our results are compared with those of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations for neutron matter and cold atoms. The Tan contact parameter in neutron matter is also calculated, finding a reasonable agreement with experimental data from ultra-cold atoms only at very low densities. We find that low-density neutron matter exhibits a behavior close to that of a Fermi gas at the unitary limit, although, this limit is actually never reached. We also review the properties (energy, effective mass, and quasiparticle residue) of a spin-down neutron impurity immersed in a low-density free Fermi gas of spin-up neutrons already studied by the author in a recent work where it was shown that these properties are very close to those of an attractive Fermi polaron in the unitary limit.

DOI
10.3389/fphy.2021.660622

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We review the properties of neutron matter in the low-density regime. In particular, we revise its ground state energy and the superfluid neutron pairing gap and analyze their evolution from the weak to the strong coupling regime. The calculations of the energy and the pairing gap are performed, respectively, within the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) approach of nuclear matter and the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory using the chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction of Entem and Machleidt at N3LO and the Argonne V18 phenomenological potential. Results for the energy are also shown for a simple Gaussian potential with a strength and range adjusted to reproduce the1S0neutron-neutron scattering length and effective range. Our results are compared with those of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations for neutron matter and cold atoms. The Tan contact parameter in neutron matter is also calculated, finding a reasonable agreement with experimental data from ultra-cold atoms only at very low densities. We find that low-density neutron matter exhibits a behavior close to that of a Fermi gas at the unitary limit, although, this limit is actually never reached. We also review the properties (energy, effective mass, and quasiparticle residue) of a spin-down neutron impurity immersed in a low-density free Fermi gas of spin-up neutrons already studied by the author in a recent work where it was shown that these properties are very close to those of an attractive Fermi polaron in the unitary limit.
I study the properties of a spin-down neutron impurity immersed in a low-density free Fermi gas of spin-up neutrons. In particular, I analyze its energy (${E}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$), effective mass (${m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}^{*}$), and quasiparticle residue (${Z}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$). Results are compared with those of state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the attractive Fermi polaron realized in ultracold atomic gases experiments, and with those of previous studies of the neutron polaron. Calculations are performed within the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach using the chiral two-body nucleon-nucleon interaction of Entem and Machleidt at N3LO{\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO}N3LO with a 500 MeV cut-off and the Argonne V18 phenomenological potential. Only contributions from the 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ partial wave, which is the dominant one in the low-density region considered, are included. Contributions from three-nucleon forces are expected to be irrelevant at these densities and, therefore, are neglected in the calculation. It is shown that for Fermi momenta between $\ensuremath{\approx}0.25$ and $\ensuremath{\approx}0.45\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}{\mathrm{fm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ the energy, effective mass, and quasiparticle residue of the impurity vary only slightly, respectively, in the ranges $\ensuremath{-}0.604\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{E}_{F}<{E}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}<\ensuremath{-}0.635\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{E}_{F}$, $1.300\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}m<{m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}^{*}<1.085\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}m$, and $0.741<{Z}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}<0.836$ in the case of the chiral interaction, and $\ensuremath{-}0.621\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{E}_{F}<{E}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}<\ensuremath{-}0.643\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{E}_{F}$, $1.310\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}m<{m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}^{*}<1.089\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}m$, and $0.739<{Z}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}<0.832$ when using the Argonne V18 potential. These results are compatible with those derived from ultracold atoms and show that a spin-down neutron impurity in a free Fermi gas of spin-up neutrons with a Fermi momentum in the range $0.25\ensuremath{\lesssim}{k}_{F}\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.45\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}{\mathrm{fm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ exhibits properties very similar to those of an attractive Fermi polaron in the unitary limit.
Experiments with cold Fermi atoms can be tuned to probe strongly-interacting fluids that are very similar to the low-density neutron matter found in the crusts of neutron stars. In contrast to traditional superfluids and superconductors, matter in this regime is very strongly paired, with gaps of the order of the Fermi energy. We compute the T=0T=0T=0 equation of state and pairing gap for cold atoms and low-density neutron matter as a function of the Fermi momentum times the scattering length. Results of quantum Monte Carlo calculations show that the equations of state are very similar. The neutron matter pairing gap at low densities is found to be very large but, except at the smallest densities, significantly suppressed relative to cold atoms because of the finite effective range in the neutron-neutron interaction.
Various quantities of an attractively interacting fermion system at the unitary limit are determined by extrapolating Monte Carlo results of low-density neutron matter. Smooth extrapolation in terms of 1/(kFa0)1/({k}_{F}{a}_{0})1/(kF​a0​) (kF{k}_{F}kF​ is the Fermi momentum, and a0{a}_{0}a0​ is the 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ scattering length) is found with the quantities examined: the ground-state energy, the pairing gap at $T\ensuremath{\approx}0$, and the critical temperature of the normal-to-superfluid phase transition. We emphasize proximity of the physics of low-density neutron matter to that at the unitary limit. The extrapolated quantities are in a reasonable agreement with those in the literature.
Thermal properties of low-density neutron matter are investigated by determinantal quantum Monte Carlo lattice calculations on 3+1 dimensional cubic lattices. Nuclear effective field theory (EFT) is applied using the pionless single- and two-parameter neutron-neutron interactions, determined from the 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ scattering length and effective range. The determination of the interactions and the calculations of neutron matter are carried out consistently by applying EFT power counting rules. The thermodynamic limit is taken by the method of finite-size scaling, and the continuum limit is examined in the vanishing lattice filling limit. The 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ pairing gap at $T\ensuremath{\approx}0$ is computed directly from the off-diagonal long-range order of the spin pair-pair correlation function and is found to be approximately 30% smaller than BCS calculations with the conventional nucleon-nucleon potentials. The critical temperature Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ of the normal-to-superfluid phase transition and the pairing temperature scale T∗{T}^{*}T∗ are determined, and the temperature-density phase diagram is constructed. The physics of low-density neutron matter is clearly identified as being a BCS-Bose-Einstein condensation crossover.
We study neutron matter at and near the unitary limit using a low-momentum ring diagram approach. By slightly tuning the meson-exchange CD-Bonn potential, neutron-neutron potentials with various 1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ scattering lengths such as ${a}_{s}=\ensuremath{-}12070$ fm and +21+21+21 fm are constructed. Such potentials are renormalized with rigorous procedures to give the corresponding as{a}_{s}as​-equivalent low-momentum potentials Vlow-k{V}_{\text{low-}k}Vlow-k​, with which the low-momentum particle-particle hole-hole ring diagrams are summed up to all orders, giving the ground state energy E0{E}_{0}E0​ of neutron matter for various scattering lengths. At the limit of ${a}_{s}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\infty}$, our calculated ratio of E0{E}_{0}E0​ to that of the noninteracting case is found remarkably close to a constant of 0.44 over a wide range of Fermi-momenta. This result reveals an universality that is well consistent with the recent experimental and Monte Carlo computational study on low-density cold Fermi gas at the unitary limit. The overall behavior of this ratio obtained with various scattering lengths is presented and discussed. Ring-diagram results obtained with Vlow-k{V}_{\text{low-}k}Vlow-k​ and those with GGG-matrix interactions are compared.
We report ab initio calculations of the S wave pairing gap in neutron matter calculated using realistic nuclear Hamiltonians that include two- and three-body interactions. We use a trial state, properly optimized to capture the essential pairing correlations, from which we extract ground state properties by means of auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo simulations. We extrapolate our results to the thermodynamic limit by studying the finite-size effects in the symmetry-restored projected Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (PBCS) theory and compare our results to other ab initio studies done in the past. Our quantum Monte Carlo results for the pairing gap show a modest suppression with respect to the mean-field BCS values. These results can be connected to cold atom experiments, via the unitarity regime where fermionic superfluidity assumes a unified description, and they are important in the prediction of thermal properties and the cooling of neutron stars.