Absence of a four-body Efimov effect in the 2 + 2 fermionic problem

In the free three-dimensional space, we consider a pair of identical $\uparrow$ fermions of some species or in some internal state, and a pair of identical $\downarrow$ fermions of another species or in another state. There is a resonant $s$-wave interaction (that is of zero range and infinite scattering length) between fermions in different pairs, and no interaction within the same pair. We study whether this $2+2$ fermionic system can exhibit (as the $3+1$ fermionic system) a four-body Efimov effect in the absence of three-body Efimov effect, that is the mass ratio $\alpha$ between $\uparrow$ and $\downarrow$ fermions and its inverse are both smaller than 13.6069{\ldots}. For this purpose, we investigate scale invariant zero-energy solutions of the four-body Schr\"odinger equation, that is positively homogeneous functions of the coordinates of degree {$s-7/2$}, where $s$ is a generalized Efimov exponent {that becomes purely imaginary in the presence of a four-body Efimov effect.} Using rotational invariance in momentum space, it is found that the allowed values of $s$ are such that $M(s)$ has a zero eigenvalue; here the operator $M(s)$, that depends on the total angular momentum $\ell$, acts on functions of two real variables (the cosine of the angle between two wave vectors and the logarithm of the ratio of their moduli), and we write it explicitly in terms of an integral matrix kernel. We have performed a spectral analysis of $M(s)$, analytical and for an arbitrary imaginary $s$ for the continuous spectrum, numerical and limited to $s = 0$ and $\ell \le 12$ for the discrete spectrum. We conclude that no eigenvalue of $M(0)$ crosses zero over the mass ratio interval $\alpha \in [1, 13.6069\ldots]$, even if, in the parity sector $(-1)^{\ell}$, the continuous spectrum of $M(s)$ has everywhere a zero lower border. As a consequence, there is no possibility of a four-body Efimov effect for the 2+2 fermions. We also enunciated a conjecture for the fourth virial coefficient of the unitary spin-$1/2$ Fermi gas,inspired from the known analytical form of the third cluster coefficient and involving the integral over the imaginary $s$-axis of $s$ times the logarithmic derivative of the determinant of $M(s)$ summed over all angular momenta.The conjectured value is in contradiction with the experimental results.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, final version published in Phys. Rev.

Exact scaling transform for a unitary quantum gas in a time dependent harmonic potential

A unitary quantum gas is a gas of quantum particles with a binary interaction of infinite scattering length and negligible range. It has been produced in recent experiments with gases of fermionic atoms by means of a Feshbach resonance. Using the Fermi pseudo-potential model for the atomic interaction, we show that the time evolution of such a gas in an isotropic three-dimensional time dependent harmonic trap is exactly given by a gauge and scaling transform.Comment: submitted 23 March 200

The unitary gas in an isotropic harmonic trap: symmetry properties and applications

We consider N atoms trapped in an isotropic harmonic potential, with s-wave interactions of infinite scattering length. In the zero-range limit, we obtain several exact analytical results: mapping between the trapped problem and the free-space zero-energy problem, separability in hyperspherical coordinates, SO(2,1) hidden symmetry, and relations between the moments of the trapping potential energy and the moments of the total energy

Phase Dynamics of Bose-Einstein Condensates: Losses versus Revivals

In the absence of losses the phase of a Bose-Einstein condensate undergoes collapses and revivals in time due to elastic atomic interactions. As experiments necessarily involve inelastic collisions, we develop a model to describe the phase dynamics of the condensates in presence of collisional losses. We find that a few inelastic processes are sufficient to damp the revivals of the phase. For this reason the observability of phase revivals for present experimental conditions is limited to condensates with a few hundreds of atoms.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures. submitted to European Journal of Physics

Creation and detection of a mesoscopic gas in a non-local quantum superposition

We investigate the scattering of a quantum matter wave soliton on a barrier in a one dimensional geometry and we show that it can lead to mesoscopic Schr\"odinger cat states, where the atomic gas is in a coherent superposition of being in the half-space to the left of the barrier and being in the half-space to the right of the barrier. We propose an interferometric method to reveal the coherent nature of this superposition and we discuss in details the experimental feasibility.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur