Abstract In this paper, we investigate the bound states of
2+1 2 + 1 fermionic trimers on a three-dimensional lattice at strong coupling. Specifically, we analyze the discrete spectrum of the associated three-body discrete Schrödinger operator
Hγ,λ(K), H γ , λ ( K ) , focusing on energies below the continuum and within its gap. Depending on the quasi-momentum K , we show that if the mass ratio
γ>0 γ > 0 between the identical fermions and the third particle is below a certain threshold, the operator lacks a discrete spectrum below the essential spectrum for sufficiently large coupling
λ>0. λ > 0 . Conversely, if
γ γ exceeds this threshold,
Hγ,λ(K) H γ , λ ( K ) admits at least one eigenvalue below the essential spectrum. Similar phenomena are observed in the neighborhood of the two-particle branch of the essential spectrum, which resides within the gap and grows sublinearly as
λ→+∞. λ → + ∞ . For
K=0, K = 0 , the mass ratio thresholds are explicitly calculated and it turns out that, for certain intermediate mass ratios and large couplings, bound states emerge within the gap, although ground states are absent.
In the free three-dimensional space, we consider a pair of identical $\ensuremath{\uparrow}$ fermions of some species or in some internal state and a pair of identical $\ensuremath{\downarrow}$ fermions of another species or in another state. There is a resonant
s-wave interaction (that is, of zero range and infinite scattering length) between fermions in different pairs and no interaction within the same pair. We study whether this
2+2 fermionic system can exhibit (as the
3+1 fermionic system) a four-body Efimov effect in the absence of three-body Efimov effect, that is, the mass ratio $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ between $\ensuremath{\uparrow}$ and $\ensuremath{\downarrow}$ fermions and its inverse are both smaller than 13.6069\dots{}. For this purpose, we investigate scale invariant zero-energy solutions of the four-body Schr\"odinger equation, that is, positively homogeneous functions of the coordinates of degree $s\ensuremath{-}7/2$, where
s is a generalized Efimov exponent that becomes purely imaginary in the presence of a four-body Efimov effect. Using rotational invariance in momentum space, it is found that the allowed values of
s are such that
M(s) has a zero eigenvalue; here the operator
M(s), that depends on the total angular momentum $\ensuremath{\ell}$, acts on functions of two real variables (the cosine of the angle between two wave vectors and the logarithm of the ratio of their moduli), and we write it explicitly in terms of an integral matrix kernel. We have performed a spectral analysis of
M(s), analytical and for an arbitrary imaginary
s for the continuous spectrum and numerical and limited to
s=0 and $\ensuremath{\ell}\ensuremath{\le}12$ for the discrete spectrum. We conclude that no eigenvalue of
M(0) crosses zero over the mass ratio interval $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\in}[1;13.6069\ensuremath{\cdots}]$, even if, in the parity sector ${(\ensuremath{-}1)}^{\ensuremath{\ell}}$, the continuous spectrum of
M(s) has everywhere a zero lower border. As a consequence, there is no possibility of a four-body Efimov effect for the
2+2 fermions. We also enunciated a conjecture for the fourth virial coefficient of the unitary spin-
1/2 Fermi gas, inspired from the known analytical form of the third cluster coefficient and involving the integral over the imaginary
s axis of
s times the logarithmic derivative of the determinant of
M(s) summed over all angular momenta. The conjectured value is in contradiction with the experimental results.
We qualify the main features of the spectrum of the Hamiltonian of point interaction for a three-dimensional quantum system consisting of three point-like particles, two identical fermions, plus a third particle of different species, with two-body interaction of zero range. For arbitrary magnitude of the interaction, and arbitrary value of the mass parameter (the ratio between the mass of the third particle and that of each fermion) above the stability threshold, we identify the essential spectrum, localise and prove the finiteness of the discrete spectrum, qualify the angular symmetry of the eigenfunctions, and prove the monotonicity of the eigenvalues with respect to the mass parameter. We also demonstrate the existence of bound states in a physically relevant regime of masses.
We study three identical bosons with contact attraction of strength mu on the square lattice at total quasimomentum K = 0 and K = pi. First, at K = 0, for all sufficiently large mu there are exactly two eigenvalues below the essential spectrum. The trimer branch follows from Kato perturbation theory at the simple isolated eigenvalue 3 of the pair-contact operator, uniformly in K; the atom-dimer branch follows from a Feshbach-Schur reduction whose limiting equation coincides with the second Birman-Schwinger (Faddeev) eigenvalue of the finite-rank principal part. The spectral gap between the two branches grows linearly in mu. Second, at K = pi the trimer branch is unchanged up to O(mu^-2), the two-particle threshold equals -mu + 4 exactly, and the gap to it is 2mu - 2 plus lower order corrections. The second bound state disappears because the exchange operator changes sign, S_pi = -S_0: the s-channel eigenvalue that exceeds 1 at K = 0 becomes negative, while the only positive atom-dimer channel at K = pi is the odd p-channel, bounded by 2 - 4/pi < 1. Consequently the operator has exactly one eigenvalue below the threshold minus 36/(mu - 10). Third, the ground state is exponentially localized in the relative coordinates. The decay exponent is positive unconditionally; under a non-cancellation hypothesis it is bounded above by log(3mu) plus lower order terms, while finite-volume computations indicate the slowest tail is the atom-dimer dissociation channel with decay rate one half log(2mu). A dictionary between the principal-part method, Kato theory, and the atom-dimer threshold matrix is given, together with the three-dimensional constants for comparison.
We compare two three-particle lattice models on the square lattice at total quasimomentum zero: three identical bosons with attractive contact interactions, and a two-fermion plus one distinguishable particle system with attractive interspecies contact. Using the Birman--Schwinger principle combined with symmetry reduction and strong-coupling asymptotics, we distinguish shared methodology from model-dependent spectral conclusions. For bosons, the ground-state energy behaves as minus three times the coupling plus six minus three over twice the coupling plus higher-order corrections, and exactly two bound states exist below the threshold for large coupling; the second lies at a finite distance 0.03542 below the threshold, a genuine eigenvalue rather than a threshold resonance. For fermions, the critical mass ratio is pi divided by pi minus two, approximately 2.75194; above it, a doubly degenerate level appears at strong coupling. Near onset, the binding energy follows a linear-over-logarithmic law. The results are compared with numerical finite-grid Faddeev computations and with recent three-dimensional classifications of threshold states.