arXiv subjects

N. T. Zinner

Publications and source records attributed to N. T. Zinner.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Mapping the Two-Component Atomic Fermi Gas to the Nuclear Shell-Model

The physics of a two-component cold fermi gas is now frequently addressed in laboratories. Usually this is done for large samples of tens to hundreds of thousands of particles. However, it is now possible to produce few-body systems (1-100 particles) in very tight traps where the shell structure of the external potential becomes important. A system of two-species fermionic cold atoms with an attractive zero-range interaction is analogous to a simple model of nucleus in which neutrons and protons interact only through a residual pairing interaction. In this article, we discuss how the problem of a two-component atomic fermi gas in a tight external trap can be mapped to the nuclear shell model so that readily available many-body techniques in nuclear physics, such as the Shell Model Monte Carlo (SMMC) method, can be directly applied to the study of these systems. We demonstrate an application of the SMMC method by estimating the pairing correlations in a small two-component Fermi system with moderate-to-strong short-range two-body interactions in a three-dimensional harmonic external trapping potential.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2014

Formation of classical crystals of dipolar particles in a helical geometry

We consider crystal formation of particles with dipole-dipole interactions that are confined to move in a one-dimensional helical geometry with their dipole moments oriented along the symmetry axis of the confining helix. The stable classical lowest energy configurations are found to be chain structures for a large range of pitch-to-radius ratios for relatively low density of dipoles and a moderate total number of particles. The classical normal mode spectra support the chain interpretation both through structure and the distinct degeneracies depending discretely on the number of dipoles per revolution. A larger total number of dipoles leads to a clusterization where the dipolar chains move closer to each other. This implies a change in the local density and the emergence of two length scales, one for the cluster size and one for the inter-cluster distance along the helix. Starting from three dipoles per revolution, this implies a breaking of the initial periodicity to form a cluster of two chains close together and a third chain removed from the cluster. This is driven by the competition between in-chain and out-of-chain interactions, or alternatively the side-by-side repulsion and the head-to-tail attraction in the system. The speed of sound propagates along the chains. It is independent of the number of chains although depending on geometry.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Few-body Physics in a Many-body World

The study of quantum mechanical few-body systems is a century old pursuit relevant to countless subfields of physics. While the two-body problem is generally considered to be well-understood theoretically and numerically, venturing to three or more bodies brings about complications but also a host of interesting phenomena. In recent years, the cooling and trapping of atoms and molecules has shown great promise to provide a highly controllable environment to study few-body physics. However, as is true for many systems where few-body effects play an important role the few-body states are not isolated from their many-body environment. An interesting question then becomes if or (more precisely) when we should consider few-body states as effectively isolated and when we have to take the coupling to the environment into account. Using some simple, yet non-trivial, examples I will try to suggest possible approaches to this line of research.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Spectral flow of trimer states of two heavy impurities and one light condensed boson

The spectral flow of three-body (trimer) states consisting of two heavy (impurity) particles sitting in a condensate of light bosons is considered. Assuming that the condensate is weakly interaction and that an impurity and a boson have a zero-range two-body interaction, we use the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to determine the effective three-body potential. We solve the resulting Schrödinger equation numerically and determine the trimer binding energies as a function of the coherence length of the light bosonic condensate particles. The binding energy is found to be suppressed by the presence of the condensate when the energy scale corresponding to the coherence length becomes of order the trimer binding energy in the absence of the condensate. We find that the Efimov scaling property is reflected in the critical values of the condensate coherence length at which the trimers are pushed into the continuum.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Fermionization of two-component few-fermion systems in a one-dimensional harmonic trap

The nature of strongly interacting Fermi gases and magnetism is one of the most important and studied topics in condensed-matter physics. Still, there are many open questions. A central issue is under what circumstances strong short-range repulsive interactions are enough to drive magnetic correlations. Recent progress in the field of cold atomic gases allows to address this question in very clean systems where both particle numbers, interactions and dimensionality can be tuned. Here we study fermionic few-body systems in a one dimensional harmonic trap using a new rapidly converging effective-interaction technique, plus a novel analytical approach. This allows us to calculate the properties of a single spin-down atom interacting with a number of spin-up particles, a case of much recent experimental interest. Our findings indicate that, in the strongly interacting limit, spin-up and spin-down particles want to separate in the trap, which we interpret as a microscopic precursor of one-dimensional ferromagnetism in imbalanced systems. Our predictions are directly addressable in current experiments on ultracold atomic few-body systems.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Higher-order Brunnian structures and possible physical realizations

We consider few-body bound state systems and provide precise definitions of Borromean and Brunnian systems. The initial concepts are more than a hundred years old and originated in mathematical knot-theory as purely geometric considerations. About thirty years ago they were generalized and applied to the binding of systems in nature. It now appears that recent generalization to higher order Brunnian structures may potentially be realized as laboratory made or naturally occurring systems. With the binding energy as measure, we discuss possibilities of physical realization in nuclei, cold atoms, and condensed matter systems. Appearance is not excluded. However, both the form and the strengths of the interactions must be rather special. The most promising subfields for present searches would be in cold atoms because of external control of effective interactions, or perhaps in condensed-matter systems with non-local interactions. In nuclei, it would only be by sheer luck due to a lack of tunability.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Contact parameters in two dimensions for general three-body systems

We study the two dimensional three-body problem in the general case of three distinguishable particles interacting through zero-range potentials. The Faddeev decomposition is used to write the momentum-space wave function. We show that the large-momentum asymptotic spectator function has the same functional form as derived previously for three identical particles. We derive analytic relations between the three different Faddeev components for three distinguishable particles. We investigate the one-body momentum distributions both analytically and numerically and analyze the tail of the distributions to obtain two- and three-body contact parameters. We specialize from the general cases to examples of two identical, interacting or non-interacting, particles. We find that the two-body contact parameter is not a universal constant in the general case and show that the universality is recovered when a subsystem is composed of two identical non-interacting particles. We also show that the three-body contact parameter is negligible in the case of one non-interacting subsystem compared to the situation where all subsystem are bound. As example, we present results for mixtures of Lithium with two Cesium or two Potassium atoms, which are systems of current experimental interest.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Three-body recombination at finite energy within an optical model

We investigate three-boson recombination of equal mass systems as function of (negative) scattering length, mass, finite energy, and finite temperature. An optical model with an imaginary potential at short distance reproduces experimental recombination data and allows us to provide a simple parametrization of the recombination rate as function of scattering length and energy. Using the two-body van der Waals length as unit we find that the imaginary potential range and also the potential depth agree to within thirty percent for Lithium and Cesium atoms. As opposed to recent studies suggesting universality of the threshold for bound state formation, our results suggest that the recombination process itself could have universal features.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Spectral Gaps of Spin-orbit Coupled Particles in Deformed Traps

We consider a spin-orbit coupled system of particles in an external trap that is represented by a deformed harmonic oscillator potential. The spin-orbit interaction is a Rashba interaction that does not commute with the trapping potential and requires a full numerical treatment in order to obtain the spectrum. The effect of a Zeeman term is also considered. Our results demonstrate that variable spectral gaps occur as a function of strength of the Rashba interaction and deformation of the harmonic trapping potential. The single-particle density of states and the critical strength for superfluidity vary tremendously with the interaction parameter. The strong variations with Rashba coupling and deformation implies that the few- and many-body physics of spin-orbit coupled systems can be manipulated by variation of these parameters.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Single-Particle Momentum Distributions of Efimov States in Mixed-Species Systems

We solve the three-body bound state problem in three dimensions for mass imbalanced systems of two identical bosons and a third particle in the universal limit where the interactions are assumed to be of zero-range. The system displays the Efimov effect and we use the momentum-space wave equation to derive formulas for the scaling factor of the Efimov spectrum for any mass ratio assuming either that two or three of the two-body subsystems have a bound state at zero energy. We consider the single-particle momentum distribution analytically and numerically and analyse the tail of the momentum distribution to obtain the three-body contact parameter. Our finding demonstrate that the functional form of the three-body contact term depends on the mass ratio and we obtain an analytic expression for this behavior. To exemplify our results, we consider mixtures of Lithium with either two Caesium or Rubium atoms which are systems of current experimental interest.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Occurrence conditions for two-dimensional Borromean systems

We search for Borromean three-body systems of identical bosons in two dimensional geometry, i.e. we search for bound three-boson system without bound two-body subsystems. Unlike three spatial dimensions, in two-dimensional geometry the two- and three-body thresholds often coincide ruling out Borromean systems. We show that Borromean states can only appear for potentials with substantial attractive and repulsive parts. Borromean states are most easily found when a barrier is present outside an attractive pocket. Extensive numerical search did not reveal Borromean states for potentials without an outside barrier. We outline possible experimental setups to observe Borromean systems in two spatial dimensions.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Bound states of Dipolar Bosons in One-dimensional Systems

We consider one-dimensional tubes containing bosonic polar molecules. The long-range dipole-dipole interactions act both within a single tube and between different tubes. We consider arbitrary values of the externally aligned dipole moments with respect to the symmetry axis of the tubes. The few-body structures in this geometry are determined as function of polarization angles and dipole strength by using both essentially exact stochastic variational methods and the harmonic approximation. The main focus is on the three, four, and five-body problems in two or more tubes. Our results indicate that in the weakly-coupled limit the inter-tube interaction is similar to a zero-range term with a suitable rescaled strength. This allows us to address the corresponding many-body physics of the system by constructing a model where bound chains with one molecule in each tube are the effective degrees of freedom. This model can be mapped onto one-dimensional Hamiltonians for which exact solutions are known.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Efimov Trimers near the Zero-crossing of a Feshbach Resonance

Near a Feshbach resonance, the two-body scattering length can assume any value. When it approaches zero, the next-order term given by the effective range is known to diverge. We consider the question of whether this divergence (and the vanishing of the scattering length) is accompanied by an anomalous solution of the three-boson Schrödinger equation similar to the one found at infinite scattering length by Efimov. Within a simple zero-range model, we find no such solutions, and conclude that higher-order terms do not support Efimov physics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Thermodynamics of Dipolar Chain Systems

The thermodynamics of a quantum system of layers containing perpendicularly oriented dipolar molecules is studied within an oscillator approximation for both bosonic and fermionic species. The system is assumed to be built from chains with one molecule in each layer. We consider the effects of the intralayer repulsion and quantum statistical requirements in systems with more than one chain. Specifically, we consider the case of two chains and solve the problem analytically within the harmonic Hamiltonian approach which is accurate for large dipole moments. The case of three chains is calculated numerically. Our findings indicate that thermodynamic observables, such as the heat capacity, can be used to probe the signatures of the intralayer interaction between chains. This should be relevant for near future experiments on polar molecules with strong dipole moments.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Efimov States of Heavy Impurities in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

We consider the problem of two heavy impurity particles embedded in a gas of weakly-interacting light mass bosonic particles in the condensed state. Using the Bogoliubov approach to describe the bosonic gas and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for the three-body dynamics, we calculate the modification to the heavy-heavy two-body potential due to the presence of the condensate. For the case of resonant interaction between the light bosons and the impurities, we present (semi)-analytical results for the potential in the limit of a large condensate coherence length. In particular, we find a formula for the modification of the Efimov scaling factor due to the presence of a degenerate bosonic gas background.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Comparing and contrasting nuclei and cold atomic gases

The experimental revolution in ultracold atomic gas physics over the past decades have brought tremendous amounts of new insight to the world of degenerate quantum systems. Here we compare and constrast the developments of cold atomic gases with the physics of nuclei since many concepts, techniques, and nomenclatures are common to both fields. However, nuclei are finite systems with interactions that are typically much more complicated than those of ultracold atomic gases. The simularities and differences must therefore be carefully addressed for a meaningful comparison and to facilitate fruitful crossdisciplinary activity. Universal results from atomic physics should have impact in certain limits of the nuclear domain. In particular, with advances in the trapping of few-body atomic systems we expect a more direct exchange of ideas and results.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2013

Finite Range Effects in Energies and Recombination Rates of Three Identical Bosons

We investigate finite-range effects in systems with three identical bosons. We calculate recombination rates and bound state spectra using two different finite-range models that have been used recently to describe the physics of cold atomic gases near Feshbach resonances where the scattering length is large. The models are built on contact potentials which take into account finite range effects; one is a two-channel model and the other is an effective range expansion model implemented through the boundary condition on the three-body wave function when two of the particles are at the same point in space. We compare the results with the results of the ubiquitous single-parameter zero-range model where only the scattering length is taken into account. Both finite range models predict variations of the well-known geometric scaling factor 22.7 that arises in Efimov physics. The threshold value at negative scattering length for creation of a bound trimer moves to higher or lower values depending on the sign of the effective range compared to the location of the threshold for the single-parameter zero-range model. Large effective ranges, corresponding to narrow resonances, are needed for the reduction to have any noticeable effect.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Mass-imbalanced Three-Body Systems in Two Dimensions

We consider three-body systems in two dimensions with zero-range interactions for general masses and interaction strengths. The momentum-space Schrödinger equation is solved numerically and in the Born-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation. The BO expression is derived using separable potentials and yields a concise adiabatic potential between the two heavy particles. The BO potential is Coulomb-like and exponentially decreasing at small and large distances, respectively. While we find similar qualitative features to previous studies, we find important quantitative differences. Our results demonstrate that mass-imbalanced systems that are accessible in the field of ultracold atomic gases can have a rich three-body bound state spectrum in two dimensional geometries. Small light-heavy mass ratios increase the number of bound states. For 87Rb-87Rb-6Li and 133Cs-133Cs-6Li we find respectively 3 and 4 bound states.

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