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:2306.17397 · Physical Review A

Variational approach to the two-dimensional Bose polaron

Yasufumi Nakano, Meera M. Parish, Jesper Levinsen

Published Jan 30, 2024• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

An impurity particle interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) leads to the formation of a quasiparticle known as the Bose polaron. We investigate the properties of the two-dimensional Bose polaron, applying a variational ansatz that contains up to three Bogoliubov excitations of the BEC. Similar to its three-dimensional counterpart, we observe the existence of two quasiparticle branches, namely, the attractive and the repulsive polarons, at different coupling strengths. We find that their energies agree well with recent quantum Monte Carlo calculations. In particular, we observe that the inclusion of three excitations is crucial to capture the attractive polaron energy towards the regime of strong attraction, where the quasiparticle properties are dominated by few-body correlations. We also calculate the attractive polaron effective mass and residue, where we find significant differences between considering a weakly interacting Bose medium and taking the noninteracting limit, signaling enhanced impurity dressing by excitations in the latter case. By contrast, the spectral weight of the metastable repulsive polaron is largely insensitive to the interactions in the BEC and the number of Bogoliubov excitations. Our model may be experimentally realized in dilute atomic vapors and atomically thin semiconductors.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.109.013325

Related papers

Strongly Interacting Bose Polarons in Two-Dimensional Atomic Gases and Quantum Fluids of Polaritons

Luis Fernando Cárdenas-Castillo, Arturo Camacho-Guardian

Polarons are quasiparticles relevant across many fields in physics: from condensed matter to atomic physics. Here, we study the quasiparticle properties of two-dimensional strongly interacting Bose polarons in atomic Bose–Einstein condensates and polariton gases. Our studies are based on the non-self consistent T-matrix approximation adapted to these physical systems. For the atomic case, we study the spectral and quasiparticle properties of the polaron in the presence of a magnetic Feshbach resonance. We show the presence of two polaron branches: an attractive polaron, a low-lying state that appears as a well-defined quasiparticle for weak attractive interactions, and a repulsive polaron, a metastable state that becomes the dominant branch at weak repulsive interactions. In addition, we study a polaron arising from the dressing of a single itinerant electron by a quantum fluid of polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity. We demonstrate the persistence of the two polaron branches whose properties can be controlled over a wide range of parameters by tuning the cavity mode.

Atoms•Dec 29, 2022•8 citations

Field-theoretical study of the Bose polaron

Steffen Patrick Rath, Richard Schmidt

We study the properties of the Bose polaron, an impurity strongly interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate, using a field-theoretic approach and make predictions for the spectral function and various quasiparticle properties that can be tested in experiment. We find that most of the spectral weight is contained in a coherent attractive and a metastable repulsive polaron branch. We show that the qualitative behavior of the Bose polaron is well described by a non-self-consistent $T$-matrix approximation by comparing analytical results to numerical data obtained from a fully self-consistent $T$-matrix approach. The latter takes into account an infinite number of bosons excited from the condensate.

arXiv:1308.3457•Physical Review A•Nov 26, 2013•262 citations

Impurity in a Bose-Einstein Condensate and the Efimov Effect

Jesper Levinsen, Meera M. Parish, Georg M. Bruun

We investigate the zero-temperature properties of an impurity particle interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), using a variational wave function that includes up to two Bogoliubov excitations of the BEC. This allows one to capture three-body Efimov physics, as well as to recover the first nontrivial terms in the weak-coupling expansion. We show that the energy and quasiparticle residue of the dressed impurity (polaron) are significantly lowered by three-body correlations, even for weak interactions where there is no Efimov trimer state in a vacuum. For increasing attraction between the impurity and the BEC, we observe a smooth crossover from atom to Efimov trimer, with a superposition of states near the Efimov resonance. We furthermore demonstrate that three-body loss does not prohibit the experimental observation of these effects. Our results thus suggest a route to realizing Efimov physics in a stable quantum many-body system for the first time.

arXiv:1505.04530•Physical Review Letters•Sep 18, 2015•192 citations

Polarons and bipolarons in a two-dimensional square lattice

Shanshan Ding, G. A. Domínguez‐Castro, Aleksi Julku +2 more

Quasiparticles and their interactions are a key part of our understanding of quantum many-body systems. Quantum simulation experiments with cold atoms have in recent years advanced our understanding of isolated quasiparticles, but so far they have provided limited information regarding their interactions and possible bound states. Here, we show how exploring mobile impurities immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a two-dimensional lattice can address this problem. First, the spectral properties of individual impurities are examined, and in addition to the attractive and repulsive polarons known from continuum gases, we identify a new kind of quasiparticle stable for repulsive boson-impurity interactions. The spatial properties of polarons are calculated showing that there is an increased density of bosons at the site of the impurity both for repulsive and attractive interactions. We then derive an effective Schrödinger equation describing two polarons interacting via the exchange of density oscillations in the BEC, which takes into account strong impurity-boson two-body correlations. Using this, we show that the attractive nature of the effective interaction between two polarons combined with the two-dimensionality of the lattice leads to the formation of bound states - i.e. bipolarons. The wave functions of the bipolarons are examined showing that the ground state is symmetric under particle exchange and therefore relevant for bosonic impurities, whereas the first excited state is doubly degenerate and odd under particle exchange making it relevant for fermionic impurities. Our results show that quantum gas microscopy in optical lattices is a promising platform to explore the spatial properties of polarons as well as to finally observe the elusive bipolarons.

arXiv:2212.00890•SciPost Physics•Jun 5, 2023•21 citations

Mixed-dimensional Bose polaron

Niels Jakob Søe Loft, Zhigang Wu, Georg M. Bruun

A new generation of cold atom experiments trapping atomic mixtures in species-selective optical potentials opens up the intriguing possibility to create systems in which different atoms live in different spatial dimensions. Inspired by this, we investigate a mixed-dimensional Bose polaron consisting of an impurity particle moving in a two-dimensional (2D) layer immersed in a 3D Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), using a theory that includes the mixed-dimensional vacuum scattering between the impurity and the bosons exactly. We show that similarly to the pure 3D case, this system exhibits a well-defined polaron state for attractive boson-impurity interaction that evolves smoothly into a mixed-dimensional dimer for strong attraction, as well as a well-defined polaron state for weak repulsive interaction, which becomes overdamped for strong interaction. We furthermore find that the properties of the polaron depend only weakly on the gas parameter of the BEC as long as the Bogoliubov theory remains a valid description for the BEC. This indicates that higher-order correlations between the impurity and the bosons are suppressed by the mixed-dimensional geometry in comparison to a pure 3D system, which led us to speculate that the mixed-dimensional polaron has universal properties in the unitarity limit of the impurity-boson interaction.

arXiv:1706.06546•Physical Review A•Sep 19, 2017•9 citations

Observation of Attractive and Repulsive Polarons in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Nils B. Jørgensen, L. J. Wacker, Kristoffer T. Skalmstang +5 more

The problem of an impurity particle moving through a bosonic medium plays a fundamental role in physics. However, the canonical scenario of a mobile impurity immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has not yet been realized. Here, we use radio frequency spectroscopy of ultracold bosonic ^{39}K atoms to experimentally demonstrate the existence of a well-defined quasiparticle state of an impurity interacting with a BEC. We measure the energy of the impurity both for attractive and repulsive interactions, and find excellent agreement with theories that incorporate three-body correlations, both in the weak-coupling limits and across unitarity. The spectral response consists of a well-defined quasiparticle peak at weak coupling, while for increasing interaction strength, the spectrum is strongly broadened and becomes dominated by the many-body continuum of excited states. Crucially, no significant effects of three-body decay are observed. Our results open up exciting prospects for studying mobile impurities in a bosonic environment and strongly interacting Bose systems in general.

arXiv:1604.07883•Physical Review Letters•Jul 28, 2016•459 citations
An impurity particle interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) leads to the formation of a quasiparticle known as the Bose polaron. We investigate the properties of the two-dimensional Bose polaron, applying a variational ansatz that contains up to three Bogoliubov excitations of the BEC. Similar to its three-dimensional counterpart, we observe the existence of two quasiparticle branches, namely, the attractive and the repulsive polarons, at different coupling strengths. We find that their energies agree well with recent quantum Monte Carlo calculations. In particular, we observe that the inclusion of three excitations is crucial to capture the attractive polaron energy towards the regime of strong attraction, where the quasiparticle properties are dominated by few-body correlations. We also calculate the attractive polaron effective mass and residue, where we find significant differences between considering a weakly interacting Bose medium and taking the noninteracting limit, signaling enhanced impurity dressing by excitations in the latter case. By contrast, the spectral weight of the metastable repulsive polaron is largely insensitive to the interactions in the BEC and the number of Bogoliubov excitations. Our model may be experimentally realized in dilute atomic vapors and atomically thin semiconductors.
Polarons are quasiparticles relevant across many fields in physics: from condensed matter to atomic physics. Here, we study the quasiparticle properties of two-dimensional strongly interacting Bose polarons in atomic Bose–Einstein condensates and polariton gases. Our studies are based on the non-self consistent T-matrix approximation adapted to these physical systems. For the atomic case, we study the spectral and quasiparticle properties of the polaron in the presence of a magnetic Feshbach resonance. We show the presence of two polaron branches: an attractive polaron, a low-lying state that appears as a well-defined quasiparticle for weak attractive interactions, and a repulsive polaron, a metastable state that becomes the dominant branch at weak repulsive interactions. In addition, we study a polaron arising from the dressing of a single itinerant electron by a quantum fluid of polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity. We demonstrate the persistence of the two polaron branches whose properties can be controlled over a wide range of parameters by tuning the cavity mode.
We study the properties of the Bose polaron, an impurity strongly interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate, using a field-theoretic approach and make predictions for the spectral function and various quasiparticle properties that can be tested in experiment. We find that most of the spectral weight is contained in a coherent attractive and a metastable repulsive polaron branch. We show that the qualitative behavior of the Bose polaron is well described by a non-self-consistent TTT-matrix approximation by comparing analytical results to numerical data obtained from a fully self-consistent TTT-matrix approach. The latter takes into account an infinite number of bosons excited from the condensate.
We investigate the zero-temperature properties of an impurity particle interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), using a variational wave function that includes up to two Bogoliubov excitations of the BEC. This allows one to capture three-body Efimov physics, as well as to recover the first nontrivial terms in the weak-coupling expansion. We show that the energy and quasiparticle residue of the dressed impurity (polaron) are significantly lowered by three-body correlations, even for weak interactions where there is no Efimov trimer state in a vacuum. For increasing attraction between the impurity and the BEC, we observe a smooth crossover from atom to Efimov trimer, with a superposition of states near the Efimov resonance. We furthermore demonstrate that three-body loss does not prohibit the experimental observation of these effects. Our results thus suggest a route to realizing Efimov physics in a stable quantum many-body system for the first time.
Quasiparticles and their interactions are a key part of our understanding of quantum many-body systems. Quantum simulation experiments with cold atoms have in recent years advanced our understanding of isolated quasiparticles, but so far they have provided limited information regarding their interactions and possible bound states. Here, we show how exploring mobile impurities immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a two-dimensional lattice can address this problem. First, the spectral properties of individual impurities are examined, and in addition to the attractive and repulsive polarons known from continuum gases, we identify a new kind of quasiparticle stable for repulsive boson-impurity interactions. The spatial properties of polarons are calculated showing that there is an increased density of bosons at the site of the impurity both for repulsive and attractive interactions. We then derive an effective Schrödinger equation describing two polarons interacting via the exchange of density oscillations in the BEC, which takes into account strong impurity-boson two-body correlations. Using this, we show that the attractive nature of the effective interaction between two polarons combined with the two-dimensionality of the lattice leads to the formation of bound states - i.e. bipolarons. The wave functions of the bipolarons are examined showing that the ground state is symmetric under particle exchange and therefore relevant for bosonic impurities, whereas the first excited state is doubly degenerate and odd under particle exchange making it relevant for fermionic impurities. Our results show that quantum gas microscopy in optical lattices is a promising platform to explore the spatial properties of polarons as well as to finally observe the elusive bipolarons.
A new generation of cold atom experiments trapping atomic mixtures in species-selective optical potentials opens up the intriguing possibility to create systems in which different atoms live in different spatial dimensions. Inspired by this, we investigate a mixed-dimensional Bose polaron consisting of an impurity particle moving in a two-dimensional (2D) layer immersed in a 3D Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), using a theory that includes the mixed-dimensional vacuum scattering between the impurity and the bosons exactly. We show that similarly to the pure 3D case, this system exhibits a well-defined polaron state for attractive boson-impurity interaction that evolves smoothly into a mixed-dimensional dimer for strong attraction, as well as a well-defined polaron state for weak repulsive interaction, which becomes overdamped for strong interaction. We furthermore find that the properties of the polaron depend only weakly on the gas parameter of the BEC as long as the Bogoliubov theory remains a valid description for the BEC. This indicates that higher-order correlations between the impurity and the bosons are suppressed by the mixed-dimensional geometry in comparison to a pure 3D system, which led us to speculate that the mixed-dimensional polaron has universal properties in the unitarity limit of the impurity-boson interaction.
The problem of an impurity particle moving through a bosonic medium plays a fundamental role in physics. However, the canonical scenario of a mobile impurity immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has not yet been realized. Here, we use radio frequency spectroscopy of ultracold bosonic ^{39}K atoms to experimentally demonstrate the existence of a well-defined quasiparticle state of an impurity interacting with a BEC. We measure the energy of the impurity both for attractive and repulsive interactions, and find excellent agreement with theories that incorporate three-body correlations, both in the weak-coupling limits and across unitarity. The spectral response consists of a well-defined quasiparticle peak at weak coupling, while for increasing interaction strength, the spectrum is strongly broadened and becomes dominated by the many-body continuum of excited states. Crucially, no significant effects of three-body decay are observed. Our results open up exciting prospects for studying mobile impurities in a bosonic environment and strongly interacting Bose systems in general.