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arXiv · 1912.10812

Van der Waals universality near a quantum tricritical point

P. M. A. Mestrom·V. E. Colussi·T. Secker·G. P. Groeneveld·S. J. J. M. F. Kokkelmans
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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 $r_{\mathrm{vdW}}$ of the van der Waals attraction. We find that the real part of $D$ behaves universally in this weakly interacting regime ($|a|/r_{\mathrm{vdW}}\lesssim 1$) 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.

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P. M. A. Mestrom, V. E. Colussi, T. Secker, G. P. Groeneveld, S. J. J. M. F. Kokkelmans. 2019-12-23. Van der Waals universality near a quantum tricritical point. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.143401

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