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EPJ Web of Conferences

Functional renormalization group and conformal invariance in cold atoms

Sergej Moroz

Published Jan 1, 2010• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present an application of a field-theoretic functional renormalization group technique to fewbody (vacuum) physics of nonrelativistic atoms near a Feshbach resonance. We consider and compare a onecomponent bosonic system with a two-component fermionic system, focusing on the scale-free unitarity limit of an infinite scattering length. While the two-body problem is consistent with nonrelativistic conformal symmetry for the two considered systems, a conformal anomaly, manifested through a renormalization group limit cycle with the Efimov parameter s0 ≈ 1.006, is found for bosons in the three-body problem.

DOI
10.1051/epjconf/20100302001

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EPJ Web of Conferences•Jan 1, 2010•0 citations
We present an application of a field-theoretic functional renormalization group technique to fewbody (vacuum) physics of nonrelativistic atoms near a Feshbach resonance. We consider and compare a onecomponent bosonic system with a two-component fermionic system, focusing on the scale-free unitarity limit of an infinite scattering length. While the two-body problem is consistent with nonrelativistic conformal symmetry for the two considered systems, a conformal anomaly, manifested through a renormalization group limit cycle with the Efimov parameter s0 ≈ 1.006, is found for bosons in the three-body problem.
We apply a field-theoretic functional renormalization-group technique to the few-body (vacuum) physics of nonrelativistic atoms near a Feshbach resonance. Three systems are considered: one-component bosons with a U(1) symmetry, two-component fermions with a $\text{U}(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\text{SU}(2)$ symmetry, and three-component fermions with a $\text{U}(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\text{SU}(3)$ symmetry. We focus on the scale-invariant unitarity limit of an infinite scattering length. The exact solution for the two-body sector is consistent with the unitary fixed-point behavior of the considered systems. Nevertheless, the numerical three-body solution in the sss-wave sector develops a limit cycle scaling in case of U(1) bosons and SU(3) fermions. The Efimov parameter for the one-component bosons and the three-component fermions is found to be $s\ensuremath{\approx}1.006$, consistent with the result of Efimov.
In this thesis nonrelativistic few-body quantum physics is investigated with the method of functional renormalization. In particular, we discuss different theoretical aspects of few-body physics related to the Efimov effect. Our central finding is that this effect manifests itself as a renormalization group limit cycle. First, we treat the problem of a singular, inverse square potential in quantum mechanics. Then we examine the original Efimov problem of three particles interacting via a short-range two-body potential. Subsequently, we present a first step towards the renormalization group solution of the four-body quantum problem for bosons. Finally, a general theoretical feature of the Efimov physics, composite operators with complex scaling dimensions, are discussed.
Few-body effects play an important role for the understanding of ultracold quantum gases. We make use of an effective field theory approach to investigate various aspects of universal few-body physics close to a Feshbach resonance. That is the regime where the scattering length is large compared to all other length scales of the system and thus determines the observables. It is also the regime where the Efimov effect whose main characteristic is the occurrence of a sequence of three-body bound states becomes important. At unitarity, i.e., for diverging scattering length, the ratio of binding energies of neighboring states approaches a constant. The existence of those trimers can be captured by a single three-body parameter and influences observables such as recombination rates. Starting from adequate Lagrangians, we derive atom-dimer scattering amplitudes that contain all information of interest about the three-particle systems. With this method, we first investigate the scattering of atoms and dimers at finite temperature in the presence of the Efimov effect. We calculate the dimer relaxation rate and obtain good agreement with available experimental data. Furthermore, heteronuclear mixtures exhibiting large interspecies scattering length are studied in detail. If bosons are the majority species, the Efimov effect occurs in an S-wave channel and we are able to compute three-body recombination and dimer relaxation rates. The results are compared to the outcome of two existing experiments. For mainly fermionic systems, the Efimov effect is only present in an overall P-wave and three-body recombination at threshold vanishes. However, in mixtures of atoms and dimers, scattering cross sections and dimer relaxation show the typical Efimov behavior of log-periodicity. We also consider two-dimensional Bose gases, where the Efimov effect does not occur. For those systems, we derive an equation including the first non-universal corrections and deduce three-body observables such as binding energies and atom-dimer scattering parameters.
We give a self-contained introduction to the physics of ultracold atoms using functional integral techniques. Based on a consideration of the relevant length scales, we derive the universal effective low energy Hamiltonian describing ultracold alkali atoms. We then introduce the concept of the effective action, which generalizes the classical action principle to full quantum status and provides an intuitive and versatile tool for practical calculations. This framework is applied to weakly interacting degenerate bosons and fermions in the spatial continuum. In particular, we discuss the related BEC and BCS quantum condensation mechanisms. We then turn to the BCS-BEC crossover, which interpolates between both phenomena, and which is realized experimentally in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. For its description, we introduce the Functional Renormalization Group approach. After a general discussion of the method in the cold atoms context, we present a detailed and pedagogical application to the crossover problem. This not only provides the physical mechanism underlying this phenomenon. More generally, it also reveals how the renormalization group can be used as a tool to capture physics at all scales, from few-body scattering on microscopic scales, through the finite temperature phase diagram governed by many-body length scales, up to critical phenomena dictating long distance physics at the phase transition. The presentation aims to equip students at the beginning PhD level with knowledge on key physical phenomena and flexible tools for their description, and should enable to embark upon practical calculations in this field.
We consider a cold Bose gas in the unitarity limit. The unitarity limit corresponds to the limit where the scattering length goes to infinity. In this thesis we first review basic quantummechanical scattering theory and explain the physics of Feshbach resonances. After that we discuss a many-body theory, which exactly incorporates the two-body physics of a Feshbach resonance. In a mean-field approximation we obtain a divergence of the energy per particle in the unitarity limit. Beyond mean field the spectral function is ill behaved. To get more insight into these problems, we also discuss a model of linearly coupled atoms and phonons. A generalized Bogoliubov transformation is used to obtain expressions for the quantized atomic and phonon field operators. Finally, we use these operators to calculate some correlation functions.