New Journal of Physics
Three-body recombination of cold fermionic atoms
Hiroya Suno, Brett D. Esry, Chris H. Greene
Abstract
Recombination of identical, spin-polarized fermions in cold three-body collisions is investigated. We parametrize the mechanisms for recombination in terms of the `scattering volume' V p and another length scale r 0 . Model two-body interactions were used within the framework of the adiabatic hyperspherical representation. We examine the recombination rate K 3 as a function of the collision energy E for various values of V p . Not only do we consider the dominant J Π = 1 + case, but also the next-leading order contributions from J Π = 1 - and 3 - . We discuss the behaviour near a two-body resonance and the expected universality of fermionic recombination. Comparisons with boson recombination are considered in detail.