van der Waals Universality near a Quantum Tricritical Point
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 rvdW of the van der Waals attraction. We find that the real part of D behaves universally in this weakly interacting regime (|a |/rvdW≲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.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- April 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.143401
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1912.10812
- Bibcode:
- 2020PhRvL.124n3401M
- Keywords:
-
- Physics - Atomic Physics;
- Condensed Matter - Quantum Gases
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 8 figures