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arXiv:2504.02997 · Physical Review A

Composite-boson-superposition ansatz approach to one-dimensional trapped few-fermion systems

Francisco Figueiredo, I. Roditi

Published Aug 15, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

Ultracold atomic systems provide a versatile platform for exploring quantum phenomena, offering tunable interactions and diverse trapping geometries. In this study, we investigate a one-dimensional system of trapped fermionic atoms using the composite boson formalism, which describes pairs of opposite-spin fermions as cobosons (short for composite bosons). We solve the Schr\"odinger equation for a $2\ensuremath{\uparrow}+2\ensuremath{\downarrow}$ fermionic system across a broad range of attractive and repulsive interactions by constructing the system's wave function as a superposition of two-coboson states. We determine key observables such as particle density profiles and two-body correlations. The density profiles calculated agree with both the Tonks-Girardeau and Lieb-Liniger limits and provide a portrait of the transition between those regimes. In the strong repulsive regime, the ansatz captures the Fridel-Wigner transition characterized by a doubling of the peaks in the density profiles. Additionally, we compute the low-lying energy spectrum and estimate the pairing gap. Our results highlight the usefulness of the coboson superposition ansatz for exploring quantum phenomena in strongly correlated few-body systems.

DOI
10.1103/t6gr-vt18

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Ultracold atomic systems provide a versatile platform for exploring quantum phenomena, offering tunable interactions and diverse trapping geometries. In this study, we investigate a one-dimensional system of trapped fermionic atoms using the composite boson formalism, which describes pairs of opposite-spin fermions as cobosons (short for composite bosons). We solve the Schr"odinger equation for a 2\ensuremath↑+2\ensuremath↓2\ensuremath{\uparrow}+2\ensuremath{\downarrow}2\ensuremath↑+2\ensuremath↓ fermionic system across a broad range of attractive and repulsive interactions by constructing the system's wave function as a superposition of two-coboson states. We determine key observables such as particle density profiles and two-body correlations. The density profiles calculated agree with both the Tonks-Girardeau and Lieb-Liniger limits and provide a portrait of the transition between those regimes. In the strong repulsive regime, the ansatz captures the Fridel-Wigner transition characterized by a doubling of the peaks in the density profiles. Additionally, we compute the low-lying energy spectrum and estimate the pairing gap. Our results highlight the usefulness of the coboson superposition ansatz for exploring quantum phenomena in strongly correlated few-body systems.
We analyze a system of fermions in a one dimensional harmonic trap with attractive delta-interactions between different fermions species, as an approximate description of experiments involving atomic dimers. We solve the problem of two fermion pairs numerically using the so-called "coboson formalism" as an alternative to techniques which are based on the single-particle basis. This allows us to explore the strongly bound regime, approaching the limit of infinite attraction in which the composite particles behave as hard-core bosons. Our procedure is computationally inexpensive and illustrates how the coboson toolbox is useful for ultracold atom systems even in absence of condensation.
Particles made of two fermions can in many cases be treated as elementary bosons, but the conditions for this treatment to be valid are nontrivial. The so-called ``coboson formalism'' is a powerful tool to tackle compositeness effects relevant for instance for exciton physics and ultracold atomic dimers. A key element of this theory is an ansatz for the ground state of NNN pairs, built from the single-pair ground state combined with the exclusion principle. We show that this ansatz can fail in one-dimensional systems which fulfill the conditions expected to make the ansatz valid. Nevertheless, we also explain how coboson theory can recover the correct ground state. Thus, our work highlights limitations and strengths of the formalism and leads to a better treatment of composite bosons.
We assess whether a confined Wigner molecule constituted by 2N2N2N fermions behaves as NNN bosons or 2N2N2N fermions. Following the work by Law [Phys. Rev. A 71, 034306 (2005)] and Chudzicki et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 070402 (2010)] we discuss the physical meaning and the reason why a large amount of entanglement is needed in order to ensure a bosonic composite behavior. By applying a composite boson ansatz, we found that a Wigner molecule confined in a two-dimensional trap presents a bosonic behavior induced by symmetry. The two-particle Wigner molecule ground state required by the composite boson ansatz was obtained within the harmonic approximation in the strong interacting regime. Our approach allows us to address few-particle states (widely studied within a variety of theoretical and numerical techniques) as well as a large number of particles (difficult to address due to computational costs). For a large number of particles, we found strong fermionic correlations exposed by the suppression of particle fluctuations. For a small number of particles, we show that the wave function calculated within the composite boson ansatz captures the Friedel-Wigner transition. The latter is shown in a regime in which strong correlations due to the Pauli exclusion principle arise; therefore, we conclude that the coboson ansatz reproduces the many-particle physics of a confined Wigner molecule, even in the presence of strong deviations of the ideal bosonic behavior due to fermionic correlations.
We explore a few-fermion mixture consisting of two components that are repulsively interacting and confined in a one-dimensional harmonic trap. Different scenarios of population imbalance ranging from the completely imbalanced case where the physics of a single impurity in the Fermi sea is discussed to the partially imbalanced and equal population configurations are investigated. For the numerical calculations the multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree method is employed, extending its application to few-fermion systems. Apart from numerical calculations we generalize our ansatz for a correlated pair wave function proposed recently [I. Brouzos and P. Schmelcher, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 045301 (2012)] for bosons to mixtures of fermions. From weak to strong coupling between the components the energies, the densities and the correlation properties of one-dimensional systems change vastly with an upper limit set by fermionization where for infinite repulsion all fermions can be mapped to identical ones. The numerical and analytical treatments are in good agreement with respect to the description of this crossover. We show that for equal populations each pair of different component atoms splits into two single peaks in the density while for partial imbalance additional peaks and plateaus arise for very strong interaction strengths. The case of a single-impurity atom shows rich behavior of the energy and density as we approach fermionization and is directly connected to recent experiments [G. Z\"urn et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 075303 (2012)].
In this thesis, we study the physical properties of several ultracold few-boson systems depending on the interactions between their constituents. Nowadays, experimentally, it is possible to have great control with high precision over the geometry and the interactions between the particles, making them an excellent setup to test directly the principles of quantum mechanics. A very interesting point is to study the evolution of their properties with the number of particles. The theoretical study of these systems pretends to microscopically understand the current experimental results and give support to new experimental developments.\n\n\t\t\t\t The method that will be used is the exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian of the system. As we will see, in spite of the attempts to improve it, the method is limited by the fact that, in practice, it is only useful to study few-particle systems. The method has several advantages. First of all, one has access to both the ground and the excited states. In second place, the method is variational and converges to the exact solution as long as the Hilbert space in which we diagonalize is enlarged.\n\t\t\t\t Moreover, since we have access to the states of the system, it is possible to calculate any observable quantity of interest.\n\n\t\t\t\t First, we will study a system of spinless bosons trapped in a two-dimensional harmonic potential. The effect of the trap is to keep the system bound. It will be seen how the presence of a repulsive interaction changes the energy spectrum and other properties of the system. For instance, the density profile, which is usually measurable, and also the two-body distribution function, which is intimately related to the existence of correlations.\n\n\t\t\t\t Afterwards, the focus will be on the particular case of having only two bosons in the system interacting through a strong repulsive force. Inspired by the one-dimensional case where the fermionization phenomenon takes place in the strongly-interacting limit, we will study whether in two dimensions there is a resembling reminiscent effect. In other words, we will analyze if there are properties of the two strongly-interacting bosons in two dimensions that are like the ones of two noninteracting fermions.\n\n\t\t\t\t After that, we will tackle the localization phenomenon in a one-dimensional system that is caused by an external speckle potential that introduces disorder in the system. We will show that the localization is a robust phenomenon against repulsive contact interactions.\n\n\t\t\t\t Finally, we will study the influence of the spin-orbit coupling in a system of bosons with two possible pseudospin components, associated, for instance, to two hyperfine levels, confined in a two-dimensional harmonic trap. We will present an exhaustive analysis of the combined effects of the interaction and the spin-orbit coupling in the spectrum and the properties of the system. In particular we show the existence of a crossover in the ground state of the system susceptible to be experimentally identified.
Spatial and momentum correlations are important in the analysis of the quantum states and different phases of trapped ultracold atom systems as a function of the strength of interatomic interactions. Identification and understanding of spin resolved patterns exhibited in two-point correlations, accessible directly by experiments, are key for uncovering the symmetry and structure of the many-body wave functions of the trapped system. Using the full configuration interaction method for exact diagonalization of the many-body Hamiltonian of N=2−−4N=2--4N=2−−4 fermionic atoms trapped in single, double, triple, and quadruple wells, we analyze both two-point momentum and space correlations, as well as associated noise distributions, for a broad range of interparticle contact repulsion strengths and interwell separations, unveiling characteristics allowing insights into the transition, via an intermediate phase, from the noninteracting Bose-Einstein condensate to the weakly interacting quasi-Bose-Einstein regime, and from the latter to the strong-repulsion Tonks-Girardeau (TG) one. The ab initio numerical predictions are shown to agree well with the results of a constructed analytical model employing localized displaced Gaussian functions to represent the NNN fermions. The two-point momentum correlations are found to exhibit damped oscillatory diffraction behavior. This diffraction behavior develops fully for atoms trapped in a single well with strong interatomic repulsion in the TG regime, or for atoms in well-separated multiwell traps. Additionally, the two-body momentum correlation and noise distributions are found to exhibit ``shortsightedness,'' with the main contribution coming from nearest-neighboring particles.