We investigate properties of an energetic atom propagating through strongly
interacting atomic gases. The operator product expansion is used to
systematically compute a quasiparticle energy and its scattering rate both in a
spin-1/2 Fermi gas and in a spinless Bose gas. Reasonable agreement with recent
quantum Monte Carlo simulations even at a relatively small momentum k/kF>1.5
indicates that our large-momentum expansions are valid in a wide range of
momentum. We also study a differential scattering rate when a probe atom is
shot into atomic gases. Because the number density and current density of the
target atomic gas contribute to the forward scattering only, its contact
density (measure of short-range pair correlation) gives the leading
contribution to the backward scattering. Therefore, such an experiment can be
used to measure the contact density and thus provides a new local probe of
strongly interacting atomic gases.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures; (v4) published with the new titl
