Physica Scripta
Conditions for bound states of the pseudopotential with harmonic confinement in arbitrary dimensions
Lanie G. McKinney, Brett Allen McKinney
Abstract
Abstract We determine the conditions for bound states (E < 0) for arbitrary Cartesian dimension d using a shape-independent regularized pseudopotential with scattering length a for two cold particles in a harmonic trap. It is known for d ≤ 3 that the regularized pseudopotential supports one bound state for positive scattering length but does not support bound states for negative scattering length. We find that the usual (d ≤ 3) positive scattering length bound states rule holds for certain higher odd dimensions d = 4n + 3 (n = 0, 1, …), but the existence of pseudopotential bound states at other odd dimensions requires a negative scattering length. Specifically, bound states are allowed in higher dimensions d = 4n + 1 (n = 1, 2, …) but they require a negative scattering length, which suggests a universe in these dimensions might lead to different chemistry than d = 3. We derive analytical approximations for bound state (E < 0) and scattering (E > 0) energies for a harmonic trap perturbed by the pseudopotential in arbitrary dimensions.