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arXiv:cond-mat/0203421 · Physical Review A

Universality in the three-body problem for 4He atoms

Eric Braaten, H.‐W. Hammer

Published Apr 11, 2003• 70 citations
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Abstract

The two-body scattering length a for ${}^{4}\mathrm{He}$ atoms is much larger than their effective range ${r}_{s}.$ As a consequence, low-energy few-body observables have universal characteristics that are independent of the interaction potential. Universality implies that, up to corrections suppressed by ${r}_{s}/a,$ all low-energy three-body observables are determined by a and a three-body parameter ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{*}.$ We give simple expressions in terms of a and ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{*}$ for the trimer binding-energy equation, the atom-dimer scattering phase shifts, and the rate for three-body recombination at threshold. We determine ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{*}$ for several ${}^{4}\mathrm{He}$ potentials from the calculated binding energy of the excited state of the trimer and use it to obtain the universality predictions for the other low-energy observables. We also use the calculated values for one potential to estimate the effective range corrections for the other potentials.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.67.042706

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•Oct 25, 2011•1 citation
The two-body scattering length a for 4He{}^{4}\mathrm{He}4He atoms is much larger than their effective range rs.{r}_{s}.rs​. As a consequence, low-energy few-body observables have universal characteristics that are independent of the interaction potential. Universality implies that, up to corrections suppressed by rs/a,{r}_{s}/a,rs​/a, all low-energy three-body observables are determined by a and a three-body parameter \ensuremathΛ∗.{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{*}.\ensuremathΛ∗​. We give simple expressions in terms of a and \ensuremathΛ∗{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{*}\ensuremathΛ∗​ for the trimer binding-energy equation, the atom-dimer scattering phase shifts, and the rate for three-body recombination at threshold. We determine \ensuremathΛ∗{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{*}\ensuremathΛ∗​ for several 4He{}^{4}\mathrm{He}4He potentials from the calculated binding energy of the excited state of the trimer and use it to obtain the universality predictions for the other low-energy observables. We also use the calculated values for one potential to estimate the effective range corrections for the other potentials.
Some aspects of universal properties are discussed in few-atom as well as in few- nucleon systems. When the two-body scattering length a is large the three-body system presents some peculiar characteristics such as the Efimov effect. In the present contribution, the zerorange theory deduced by V. Efimov is compared to results obtained using potential models. Accordingly range corrections are introduced. These corrections appear as a shift in the variable K * a with K * the three-body parameter. The three-boson spectrum, atom-dimer scattering and the recombination rate at threshold are analyzed using the finite-range theory proposed. In the case of nuclear systems, n – d scattering is discussed using the universal formula derived by Efimov. Furthermore, the spectrum up to N = 6 is discussed using the central Volkov potential.
Four-body system of 4He{}^4\mathrm{He}4He atoms: Dimer-dimer scattering
The strong short-range repulsion, characteristic to realistic interatomic potentials, complicates the description of weakly-bound few-body systems such as those of \He atoms. The present work proposes an approach for solving this problem and applies it to a realistic system of four 4He{}^4\mathrm{He}4He atoms. The potential is gradually softened such that rigorous four-body equations for bound and scattering tates can be accurately solved in the momentum-space framework, and the results are extrapolated back to the limit of the original potential. Linear correlations between three- and four body quantities are observed, and the accuracy of the procedure is improved by extrapolating in one of the three-body quantities. Results for the 4He{}^4\mathrm{He}4He tetramer ground and excited state binding energies and atom-trimer scattering agree well with at least some of earlier determinations and shed light on the existing disagreements. An additional case of the Phillips correlation line is established for the dimer-dimer scattering length. The trimer production rate via the ultracold two-dimer collisions is estimated, it exhibits significant finite-range effects despite the weak binding of the dimer.
Few-body systems with large scattering length aaa have universal properties that do not depend on the details of their interactions at short distances. The rate constant for three-body recombination of bosonic atoms of mass mmm into a shallow dimer scales as $\ensuremath{\hbar}{a}^{4}∕m$ times a log-periodic function of the scattering length. We calculate the leading and subleading corrections to the rate constant, which are due to the effective range of the atoms, and study the correlation between the rate constant and the atom-dimer scattering length. Our results are applied to 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He atoms as a test case.
We calculated, using seven realistic $^{4}\mathrm{He}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{4}\mathrm{He}$ potentials in the literature, the Efimov spectra of the 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He trimer and tetramer and analyzed the universality of the systems. The three-(four-)body Schr\"odinger equations were solved fully nonadiabatically with the high-precision calculation method employed in our previous work on the 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He trimer and tetramer [Phys. Rev. A 85, 022502 (2012); Phys. Rev. A 85, 062505 (2012)]. We found the following universality in the four-boson system: (i) The critical scattering lengths at which the tetramer ground and excited states couple to the four-body threshold are independent of the choice of the two-body realistic potentials in spite of the difference in the short-range details and do not contradict the corresponding values observed in the experiments in ultracold alkali-metal atoms when scaled with the van der Waals length rvdW{r}_{\mathrm{vdW}}rvdW​, and (ii) the four-body hyperradial potential has a repulsive barrier at the four-body hyperradius ${R}_{4}\ensuremath{\approx}3\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{r}_{\mathrm{vdW}}$, which prevents the four particles from getting close together to explore nonuniversal features of the interactions at short distances. This result is an extension of the universality in Efimov trimers that the appearance of the repulsive barrier at the three-body hyperradius ${R}_{3}\ensuremath{\approx}2\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{r}_{\mathrm{vdW}}$ makes the critical scattering lengths independent of the short-range details of the interactions as reported in the literature and also in the present work for the 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He trimer with the realistic potentials.
For atoms with large scattering length, the dependence of the three-body recombination rate on the collision energy is determined by the scattering length and the Efimov three-body parameters and can be expressed in terms of universal functions of a single scaling variable. We use published results on the three-body recombination rate for 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He atoms to constrain the universal functions. We then use those universal functions to calculate the three-body recombination rate for other atoms with large scattering length at nonzero temperature. The constraints from the 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He results are strong if the scattering length is near the minimum of the three-body recombination rate at threshold. We apply our results to 133Cs^{133}\mathrm{Cs}133Cs atoms with a large positive scattering length, and compare them with experimental results from the Innsbruck group.
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.