Few-body Physics in Ultracold Quantum Gases

A special issue of Atoms (ISSN 2218-2004).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 July 2020) | Viewed by 12068

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
JILA, University of Colorado and NIST, Boulder, CO CO 80309-0440, USA;
Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0440, USA
Interests: few-body systems; ultracold quantum gases; Efimov physics and strong interactions; multiparticle dynamics and quantum scattering; Rydberg physics and Ultracold Chemistry

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The ability to control interatomic interactions in ultracold quantum gases has triggered a broad range of opportunities to explore fundamental few-body systems in a well-controlled matter. This ability enables the prediction and realization of a complex array of quantum phenomena that interconnect a number of different physics subfields, especially atomic, optical, condensed matter, nuclear physics, and chemistry. Few-body systems pose some of the greatest challenges to theorists in atomic physics because of their extremely nonpertubative nature. The rich and fundamental character of few-body interactions can also represent opportunities for exploring novel phases of matter and offers a path for understanding strongly correlated collective phenomena in ultracold quantum gases. In fact, recent experimental efforts have been increasingly designed for the exploration of fundamental few-body aspects in their own right and have provided many observations of the so-called Efimov effect. Predicted nearly 50 years ago, the Efimov effect is a bizarre and counterintuitive effect and now a quantum workhorse that permits us to penetrate into some of the deepest issues of universal few-body physics, bringing forth the promise of a new level of control for exploring novel exotic dynamical regimes. Few-body physics helps bridge the gap between the two-body physics explored in many ultracold gases and the many-body physics underlying condensed matter.

This Special Issue of Atoms will highlight recent advances in few-body physics relevant for ultracold quantum gases. These include theoretical and experimental advances in characterizing universal aspects of systems with strong interactions, as Efimov and Rydberg physics, but also various other few-body aspects underlying ultracold chemistry, exotic few-body states,andfew-body scattering processes and dynamics. Original research and (short) pedagogical reviews on specific topics are welcome.

Dr. Jose D'Incao
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Ultracold quantum gases
  • few-body physics
  • Efimov states
  • Rydberg states
  • ultracold chemistry
  • exotic few-body states
  • few-body scattering and dynamics

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 1715 KiB  
Article
Geometric Phase Effects in Ultracold Chemical Reactions
by Brian K. Kendrick and N. Balakrishnan
Atoms 2019, 7(3), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms7030065 - 3 Jul 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3971
Abstract
The role of the geometric phase effect in chemical reaction dynamics has long been a topic of active experimental and theoretical investigations. The topic has received renewed interest in recent years in cold and ultracold chemistry where it was shown to play a [...] Read more.
The role of the geometric phase effect in chemical reaction dynamics has long been a topic of active experimental and theoretical investigations. The topic has received renewed interest in recent years in cold and ultracold chemistry where it was shown to play a decisive role in state-to-state chemical dynamics. We provide a brief review of these developments focusing on recent studies of O + OH and hydrogen exchange in the H + H 2 and D + HD reactions at cold and ultracold temperatures. Non-adiabatic effects in ultracold chemical dynamics arising from the conical intersection between two electronic potential energy surfaces are also briefly discussed. By taking the hydrogen exchange reaction as an illustrative example it is shown that the inclusion of the geometric phase effect captures the essential features of non-adiabatic dynamics at collision energies below the conical intersection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Few-body Physics in Ultracold Quantum Gases)
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11 pages, 608 KiB  
Article
Universal Scattering of Ultracold Atoms and Molecules in Optical Potentials
by Hui Li, Ming Li, Constantinos Makrides, Alexander Petrov and Svetlana Kotochigova
Atoms 2019, 7(1), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms7010036 - 15 Mar 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4526
Abstract
Universal collisions describe the reaction of molecules and atoms as dominated by long-range interparticle interactions. Here, we calculate the universal inelastic rate coefficients for a large group of ultracold polar molecules in their lower ro-vibrational states colliding with one of their constituent atoms. [...] Read more.
Universal collisions describe the reaction of molecules and atoms as dominated by long-range interparticle interactions. Here, we calculate the universal inelastic rate coefficients for a large group of ultracold polar molecules in their lower ro-vibrational states colliding with one of their constituent atoms. The rate coefficients are solely determined by values of the dispersion coefficient and reduced mass of the collisional system. We use the ab initio coupled-cluster linear response method to compute dynamic molecular polarizabilities and obtain the dispersion coefficients for some of the collisional partners and use values from the literature for others. Our polarizability calculations agree well with available experimental measurements. Comparison of our inelastic rate coefficients with results of numerically exact quantum-mechanical calculations leads us to conjecture that collisions with heavier atoms can be expected to be more universal. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Few-body Physics in Ultracold Quantum Gases)
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Review

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14 pages, 899 KiB  
Review
Two-Body and Three-Body Contacts for Three Bosons in the Unitary Regime: Analytic Expressions and Limiting Forms
by Victor E. Colussi
Atoms 2019, 7(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms7010019 - 5 Feb 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2858
Abstract
The two- and three-body contacts are central to a set of univeral relations between microscopic few-body physics within an ultracold Bose gas and its thermodynamical properties. They may also be defined in trapped few-particle systems, which is the subject of this work. In [...] Read more.
The two- and three-body contacts are central to a set of univeral relations between microscopic few-body physics within an ultracold Bose gas and its thermodynamical properties. They may also be defined in trapped few-particle systems, which is the subject of this work. In this work, we focus on the unitary three-body problem in a trap, where interactions are as strong as allowed by quantum mechanics. We derive analytic results for the two- and three-body contacts in this regime and compare them with existing limiting expressions and previous numerical studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Few-body Physics in Ultracold Quantum Gases)
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