Effective Range Corrections to Three-Body Recombination for Atoms with Large Scattering Length

Few-body systems with large scattering length a 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 m into a shallow dimer scales as \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 atoms as a test case.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, improved discussion, final versio

Resonant Dimer Relaxation in Cold Atoms with a Large Scattering Length

Efimov physics refers to universal phenomena associated with a discrete scaling symmetry in the 3-body problem with a large scattering length. The first experimental evidence for Efimov physics was the recent observation of a resonant peak in the 3-body recombination rate for 133Cs atoms with large negative scattering length. There can also be resonant peaks in the atom-dimer relaxation rate for large positive scattering length. We calculate the atom-dimer relaxation rate as a function of temperature and show how measurements of the relaxation rate can be used to determine accurately the parameters that govern Efimov physics.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, normalization error in figures corrected, equations unchange

The Efimov effect for three interacting bosonic dipoles

Three oriented bosonic dipoles are treated using the hyperspherical adiabatic representation, providing numerical evidence that the Efimov effect persists near a two-dipole resonance and in a system where angular momentum is not conserved. Our results further show that the Efimov features in scattering observables become universal, with a known three-body parameter, i.e. the resonance energies depend only on the two-body physics, which also has implications for the universal spectrum of the four-dipole problem. Moreover, the Efimov states should be long-lived, which is favorable for their creation and manipulation in ultracold dipolar gases. Finally, deeply-bound two-dipole states are shown to be relatively stable against collisions with a third dipole, owing to the emergence of a repulsive interaction originating in the angular momentum nonconservation for this system.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

The few-body problem for trapped bosons with large scattering length

We calculate energy levels of two and three bosons trapped in a harmonic oscillator potential with oscillator length $a_{\mathrm osc}$. The atoms are assumed to interact through a short-range potential with a scattering length $a$, and the short-distance behavior of the three-body wave function is characterized by a parameter $\theta$. For large positive $a/a_{\mathrm osc}$, the energies of states which, in the absence of the trap, correspond to three free atoms approach values independent of $a$ and $\theta$. For other states the $\theta$ dependence of the energy is strong, but the energy is independent of $a$ for $|a/a_{\mathrm osc}|\gg1$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Origin of the Three-body Parameter Universality in Efimov Physics

In recent years extensive theoretical and experimental studies of universal few-body physics have led to advances in our understanding of universal Efimov physics [1]. The Efimov effect, once considered a mysterious and esoteric effect, is today a reality that many experiments in ultracold quantum gases have successfully observed and continued to explore [2-14]. Whereas theory was the driving force behind our understanding of Efimov physics for decades, recent experiments have contributed an unexpected discovery. Specifically, measurements have found that the so-called three-body parameter determining several properties of the system is universal, even though fundamental assumptions in the theory of the Efimov effect suggest that it should be a variable property that depends on the precise details of the short-range two- and three-body interactions. The present Letter resolves this apparent contradiction by elucidating unanticipated implications of the two-body interactions. Our study shows that the three-body parameter universality emerges because a universal effective barrier in the three-body potentials prevents the three particles from simultaneously getting close to each other. Our results also show limitations on this universality, as it is more likely to occur for neutral atoms and less likely to extend to light nuclei.Comment: 11 pages; 9 figures. Includes Supplementary Materia

(Anti-)self-dual homogeneous vacuum gluon field as an origin of confinement and SUL(NF)×SUR(NF)SU_L(N_F)\times SU_R(N_F) symmetry breaking in QCD

It is shown that an (anti-)self-dual homogeneous vacuum gluon field appears in a natural way within the problem of calculation of the QCD partition function in the form of Euclidean functional integral with periodic boundary conditions. There is no violation of cluster property within this formulation, nor are parity, color and rotational symmetries broken explicitly. The massless limit of the product of the quark masses and condensates, $m_f \langle \bar\psi_f \psi_f \rangle$, is calculated to all loop orders. This quantity does not vanish and is proportional to the gluon condensate appearing due to the nonzero strength of the vacuum gluon field. We conclude that the gluon condensate can be considered as an order parameter both for confinement and chiral symmetry breaking.Comment: 16 pages, LaTe

Enhanced Dimer Relaxation in an Atomic/Molecular BEC

We derive a universal formula for the rate constant \beta for relaxation of a shallow dimer into deeply-bound diatomic molecules in the case of atoms with a large scattering length a. We show that \beta is determined by a and by two 3-body parameters that also determine the binding energies and widths of Efimov states. The rate constant \beta scales like \hbar a/m near the resonance, but the coefficient is a periodic function of ln(a) that may have resonant enhancement at values of a that differ by multiples of 22.7.Comment: 5 pages, revtex4, 2 PS figures, title changed, final versio

Universality in the physics of cold atoms with large scattering length

Effective field theories exploit a separation of scales in physical systems in order to perform systematically improvable, model-independent calculations. They are ideally suited to describe universal aspects of a wide range of physical systems. I will discuss recent applications of effective field theory to cold atomic and molecular few-body systems with large scattering length.Comment: Invited talk at Few-Body 17, June 2003, Durham, NC, USA, 5 pages, 3 figures, uses espcrc1.st