It is shown that a cluster expansion technique, which is usually applied in the high-temperature regime to calcutate virial coefficients, can be applied to evaluate the superfluid transition temperature of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)--Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover \`a la Lee and Yang. The transition temperature is identified with the emergence of the singularity in the sum of a certain infinite series of cluster functions. In the weak-coupling limit, we reproduce the Thouless criterion and the number equation of Nozi\`eres and Schmitt-Rink, and hence the transition temperature of the BCS theory. In the strong-coupling limit, we reproduce the transition temperature of BEC of noninteracting tightly bound dimers.
We present a many-body formalism for BCS-BEC crossover, which represents a modification of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-Leggett ground state to include four-fermion and higher correlations. In the Bose-Einstein condensate regime, we show how our approach contains the four-fermion behavior of Petrov et al. and associated scattering length
add at short distances and, second, reduces to composite-boson Bogoliubov physics at long distances. It reproduces the Lee-Yang term, whose numerical value is also fixed by
add. We have also examined the next term beyond the Lee-Yang correction in a phenomenological fashion, building on cloud size data and collective mode experiments, although one has to view this phenomenological analysis with some caution since experiments are in a state of flux and are performed close to unitarity.