Recent calculations with an effective isospin-dependent contact interaction show the possibility of the crossover from superfluidity of neutron Cooper pairs in the
1S0 pairing channel to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of di-neutron bound states in dilute nuclear matter. The density and spin correlation functions are calculated for a di-neutron condensate in asymmetric nuclear matter with the aim of finding the possible features of the BCS-BEC crossover. It is shown that the zero-momentum transfer spin correlation function satisfies the sum rule at zero temperature. In symmetric nuclear matter, the density correlation function changes sign at low momentum transfer across the BCS-BEC transition, and this feature can be considered as a signature of the crossover. At finite isospin asymmetry, this criterion gives too large a value for the critical asymmetry ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}^{d}~0.9$, at which the BEC state is quenched. Therefore, it can be trusted for the description of the density-driven BCS-BEC crossover of neutron pairs only at small isospin asymmetry. This result generalizes the conclusion of the study in Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 090402 (2005), where the change of sign of the density correlation function at low momentum transfer in two-component quantum fermionic atomic gas with the balanced populations of fermions of different species was considered as an unambiguous signature of the BCS-BEC transition.
In the calculation of the energy per neutron in the zeroth cluster and first perturbative order at different neutron densities, a complete set of correlated basic functions has been used to represent the ground-state wave function for a system of neutron gas. Three potentials, all fitting two-nucleon data, were used. They are the Hamada-Johnston (HJ), Breit, and Brueckner-Gammel-Thaler (BGT) potentials. The results show that the energy decreases monotonically, as neutron density decreases and that the energy values at low densities are nearly the same for all three potentials. But at high densities, the BGT result departs quite markedly from those for HJ and Breit potentials. The results also indicate that a bound state due to the nuclear $n\ensuremath{-}n$ force alone does not exist for a system of neutron gas.
We review the properties of neutron matter in the low-density regime. In particular, we revise its ground state energy and the superfluid neutron pairing gap and analyze their evolution from the weak to the strong coupling regime. The calculations of the energy and the pairing gap are performed, respectively, within the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) approach of nuclear matter and the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory using the chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction of Entem and Machleidt at N3LO and the Argonne V18 phenomenological potential. Results for the energy are also shown for a simple Gaussian potential with a strength and range adjusted to reproduce the1S0neutron-neutron scattering length and effective range. Our results are compared with those of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations for neutron matter and cold atoms. The Tan contact parameter in neutron matter is also calculated, finding a reasonable agreement with experimental data from ultra-cold atoms only at very low densities. We find that low-density neutron matter exhibits a behavior close to that of a Fermi gas at the unitary limit, although, this limit is actually never reached. We also review the properties (energy, effective mass, and quasiparticle residue) of a spin-down neutron impurity immersed in a low-density free Fermi gas of spin-up neutrons already studied by the author in a recent work where it was shown that these properties are very close to those of an attractive Fermi polaron in the unitary limit.