Polaronic mass renormalization of impurities in BEC: correlated Gaussian wavefunction approach

Abstract

We propose a class of variational Gaussian wavefunctions to describe Fröhlich polarons at finite momenta. Our wavefunctions give polaron energies that are in excellent agreement with the existing Monte Carlo results for a broad range of interactions. We calculate the effective mass of polarons and find smooth crossover between weak and intermediate impurity-bosons coupling. Effective masses that we obtain are considerably larger than those predicted by the mean-field method. A novel prediction based on our variational wavefunctions is a special pattern of correlations between host atoms that can be measured in time-of-flight experiments. We discuss atomic mixtures in systems of ultracold atoms in which our results can be tested with current experimental technology.