Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: We study the three-body scattering hypervolume D of atoms whose scattering length a is on the order of or smaller than the typical range r_{vdW} of the van der Waals attraction. We find that the real part of D behaves universally in this weakly interacting regime (|a|/r_{vdW}≲1) in the absence of trimer resonances. This universality originates from hard-spherelike collisions that dominate elastic three-body scattering. We use this result to make quantitative predictions for the thermodynamics and elementary excitations of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in the vicinity of a quantum tricritical point, including quantum droplets stabilized by effective three-body interactions.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Institution: Eindhoven University of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3015400870