Vibrational and rotational bound states in floppy triatomic systems: The distributed Gaussian functions approach

A variational method based on the use of bond coordinates and of a basis set expansion described by distributed Gaussian functions (DGF) is reviewed for its applications to the study of weakly bound triatomic clusters. This approach will be shown to be particularly well suited to treat very diffuse states as those presented by Noble gas (Ng) containing systems like the Ng₃, and Ng₂X, with X being also a very weakly bound atomic impurity. Several statistical properties such as radial distributions, sizes and dominance of triangular configurations for the corresponding bound states are shown to be directly obtained with this method over the whole spectrum of the floppy cluster bound states, in both the rotationless case and also when special care is taken to define rotational constants to yield rovibrational states and their energy levels.     

Strong-coupling expansions for multiparticle excitations: continuum and bound states

We present a new linked cluster expansion for calculating properties of multiparticle excitation spectra to high orders. We use it to obtain the two-particle spectra for systems of coupled spin-half dimers. We find that even for weakly coupled dimers the spectrum is very rich, consisting of many bound states. The number of bound states depends on both geometry of coupling and frustration. Many of the bound states can only be seen by going to sufficiently high orders in the perturbation theory, showing the extended character of the pair attraction.     

Fermion bound states in geometrically deformed backgrounds

This work deals with the behavior of fermions in the background of kinklike structures in the twodimensional spacetime. The kinklike structures appear from bosonic scalar field models that engender distinct profiles and interact with the fermion fields via the standard Yukawa coupling. We first consider two models that engender parity symmetry, one leading to the exclusion of fermion bound states, and the other to the inclusion of bound states, when the parameter that controls the bosonic structure varies from zero to unity. We then investigate a third model where the kinklike solution explicitly breaks parity symmetry, leading to fermion bound states that are spatially asymmetric.     

Suppression of molecular decay in ultracold gases without Fermi statistics

We study inelastic processes for ultracold three-body systems in which only one interaction is resonant. We show that at ultracold temperatures three-body recombination in such systems leads mainly to the formation of weakly bound molecules. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, we have found that the decay rates for weakly bound molecules due to collisions with other atoms can be suppressed not only without fermionic statistics but also when bosonic statistics applies. These results indicate that recombination in three-component atomic gases can be used as an efficient mechanism for molecular formation, allowing the achievement of high molecular densities.     

A variational approach to bound states in quantum field theory

We consider here in a toy model an approach to bound state problem in a nonperturbative manner using equal time algebra for the interacting field operators. The potential is replaced by offshell bosonic quanta inside the bound state of nonrelativistic particles. The bosonic dressing is determined through energy minimisation, and mass renormalisation is carried out in a nonperturbative manner. Since the interaction is through a scalar field, it does not include spin effects. The model however nicely incorporates an intuitive picture of hadronic bound states in which the gluon fields dress the quarks providing the binding between them and also simulate the gluonic content of hadrons in deep inelastic collisions.     

Collisional stability of fermionic Feshbach molecules

Using a Feshbach resonance, we create ultracold fermionic molecules starting from a Bose-Fermi atom gas mixture. The resulting mixture of atoms and weakly bound molecules provides a rich system for studying few-body collisions because of the variety of atomic collision partners for molecules; either bosonic, fermionic, or distinguishable atoms. Inelastic loss of the molecules near the Feshbach resonance is dramatically affected by the quantum statistics of the colliding particles and the scattering length. In particular, we observe a molecule lifetime as long as 100 ms near the Feshbach resonance.     

Entanglement behaviors of two-mode squeezed thermal states in two different environments

We study entanglement properties of two-mode squeezed thermal states subjected to two sources of decoherence: the common reservoirs and the bosonic memory Gaussian channel. For the former one, we find that there exist three different behaviors: no-sudden death, sudden death, and no-creation of entanglement. The range of parameters characterizing these processes is obtained. For the latter one, we obtain a threshold in the degree of squeezing above which the input states remain always entangled. Otherwise, no entanglement is allowed in bosonic Gaussian channel with memory effect. We show that a degree of memory for quantum channel can be help to increase the initial entanglement, while the mean number of added thermal photons is to fasten the decoherence process.     

Bound states of composite particles and the GSI lines

We calculate the correlated wave functions and the energy eigenvalues of a charged fermion-antifermion pair bound in the Coulomb field of a heavy nucleus, assuming a confining potential between the fermions. This model is motivated by properties of the coincident electron-positron lines observed at GSI. We confirm the results of earlier calculations which were based on simplifying assumptions. In addition we find new, very weakly bound states which, however, do not have the decay properties required to explain the experiments.     

Formation and stability of high-spin alkali clusters

Helium nanodroplet isolation has been applied to agglomerate alkali clusters at temperatures of 380 mK. The very weak binding to the surface of the droplets allows a selection of only weakly bound, high-spin states. Here we show that larger clusters of alkali atoms in high-spin states can be formed. The lack of strong bonds from pairing electrons makes these systems nonmetallic, van der Waals-like complexes of metal atoms. We find that sodium and potassium readily form such clusters containing up to 25 atoms. In contrast, this process is suppressed for rubidium and cesium. Apparently, for these heavy alkalis, larger high-spin aggregates are not stable and depolarize spontaneously upon cluster formation.     

Structure and Occurrence of Three-Body Halos in Two Dimensions

 The quantum-mechanical three-body problem is reformulated in two dimensions by use of hyperspherical coordinates and an adiabatic expansion of the Faddeev equations. The effective radial potentials are calculated and their large-distance asymptotic behavior is derived analytically for short-range two-body interactions. Energies and wave functions are computed numerically for various potentials. An infinite series of Efimov states does not exist in two dimensions. Borromean systems, i.e. bound three-body systems without bound binary subsystems, can only appear when a short-range repulsive barrier at finite distance is present in the two-body interaction. The corresponding Borromean state is never spatially extended. For a system of three weakly interacting identical bosons we find two bound states with both binding energies proportional to the two-body binding energy. In the limit of small binding these states are spatially located at the very large distances characterized by the scattering length. Their properties are universal and independent of the details of the potential. We compare throughout with the corresponding properties in three dimensions. Received September 25, 1998; accepted for publication January 30, 1999     

Weakly bound dimers of fermionic atoms

We discuss the behavior of weakly bound bosonic dimers formed in a two-component cold Fermi gas at a large positive scattering length a for the interspecies interaction. We find the exact solution for the dimer-dimer elastic scattering and obtain a strong decrease of their collisional relaxation and decay with increasing a. The large ratio of the elastic to inelastic rate is promising for achieving Bose-Einstein condensation of the dimers and cooling the condensed gas to very low temperatures.     

An improved single-particle basis for nuclear structure studies far from stability

A new single-particle basis is proposed for use in weakly bound nuclei far from the valley of beta stability.The basis, obtained by applying a local-scaling point transformation to the states of a harmonic oscillator potential, can be tailored to have the correct asymptotic properties for weakly bound systems.We first present a test of the basis and then apply it in Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov calculations of the even Mg isotopes, from the proton drip line to the neutron drip line.     

D-branes as coherent states in the open string channel

We show that bosonic D-branestates may be represented as coherent states in an open string representation. By using the thermo field dynamics (TFD) formalism, we may construct a condensed state of open string modes that encodes the information on the D-braneconfiguration. We also introduce a construction alternative to TFD, which does not require one to assume thermal equilibrium. It is shown that the dynamics of the system combined with the geometric properties of the duplication rules of TFD is sufficient to obtain the thermal states and their analytic continuations in a geometric fashion. We use this approach to show that a bosonic D-branestate in the open string sector may also be built as boundary states in a special sense. Some implications of this study for the interpretation of the open/closed duality and on the kinematic/algebraic structure of an open string field theory are also commented on.     

Alpha-particle and triton cluster states in 19F

We calculate the energies and other properties of three- and four-particle cluster states in the nuclei ¹⁹F and ¹⁹Ne, treated as eigenstat es of a local cluster-core potential. The potential we consider is a symmetrized Saxon-Woods well which has the advantage that a single value of the potential depth can generate rotational spectra of levels with different values of orbital angular momentum L; in this respect, it is very similar to the folding potentials which have been used in previous cluster calculations. We discuss the cluster states in the light of recent three- and four-particle heavy ion transfer reactions and studies of the electromagnetic decay properties of bound and continuum states. Most of the states observed to be strongly populated in the transfer experiments can be unambiguously assigned to cluster bands based on ¹⁶O + t and ¹⁵N + α configurations with various angular momenta and node numbers. Some evidence for mixing between triton and alpha configurations exists and is discussed. We also calculate the electromagnetic properties of the cluster states and find that, with few exceptions, they are in good agreement with the experimental data. Some El transitions are predicted to be very large, contrary to existing experiments, and new experiments are proposed to investigate this discrepancy.     

Universal properties of the four-body system with large scattering length

Few-body systems with large scattering length have universal properties that do not depend on the details of their interactions at short distances. We study the universal bound-state properties of the four-boson system with large scattering length in an effective quantum mechanics approach. We compute the four-body binding energies using the Yakubovsky equations for positive and negative scattering length. Moreover, we study the correlation between three- and four-body energies and present a generalized Efimov plot for the four-body system. These results are useful for understanding the cluster structure of nuclei and for the creation of weakly bound tetramers with cold atoms close to a Feshbach resonance.     

Multipole-based modal analysis of gate-defined quantum dots in graphene

A new numerical method based on the multipoles of the Dirac equation is presented for rigorous and fast analysis of electron scattering from gate-defined structures in graphene. The new method is used to study the strongly bound states and the weakly bound states of a circular quantum dot. The accuracy of the obtained results is then verified by the T-matrix method. Furthermore, we characterize the resonances of elliptical gate-defined quantum dots and compare these resonances with the strongly bound states of circular dots. The effects of coupling between two quantum dots are also investigated.     

Production of long-lived ultracold Li2 molecules from a Fermi gas

We create weakly bound Li2 molecules from a degenerate two component Fermi gas by sweeping a magnetic field across a Feshbach resonance. The atom-molecule transfer efficiency can reach 85% and is studied as a function of magnetic field and initial temperature. The bosonic molecules remain trapped for 0.5 s and their temperature is within a factor of 2 from the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature. A thermodynamical model reproduces qualitatively the experimental findings.     

Quantum Correlations in Systems of Indistinguishable Particles

We discuss quantum correlations in systems of indistinguishable particles in relation to entanglement in composite quantum systems consisting of well separated subsystems. Our studies are motivated by recent experiments and theoretical investigations on quantum dots and neutral atoms in microtraps as tools for quantum information processing. We present analogies between distinguishable particles, bosons, and fermions in low-dimensional Hilbert spaces. We introduce the notion of Slater rank for pure states of pairs of fermions and bosons in analogy to the Schmidt rank for pairs of distinguishable particles. This concept is generalized to mixed states and provides a correlation measure for indistinguishable particles. Then we generalize these notions to pure fermionic and bosonic states in higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces and also to the multi-particle case. We review the results on quantum correlations in mixed fermionic states and discuss the concept of fermionic Slater witnesses. Then the theory of quantum correlations in mixed bosonic states and of bosonic Slater witnesses is formulated. In both cases we provide methods of constructing optimal Slater witnesses that detect the degree of quantum correlations in mixed fermionic and bosonic states.     

Robustness of tripartite entanglement transfer from bosonic modes to localized qubits

We address entanglement transfer from a three-mode bosonic system to a tripartite systems of spatially separated flying or fixed qubits through the interaction with their local environments. We focus on the robustness of entanglement transfer against several effects, including off-resonant interactions for both qubit-local environment and local environment-bosonic mode subsystems, and also exploring the effect of changing the coupling constants, with the possibility to have different values for each qubit-local environment interaction. For the entangled bosonic modes we consider both Gaussian states and qubit-like states, comparing three different Generalized Schmidt Decompositions forms widely used in the literature and analyzing how the deviation from qubit-like approximation influences entanglement transfer. Finally, we investigate the multimode coupling between bosonic modes and each local environment showing a comparison between various qubit-like initial states and discussing how to improve the efficiency of entanglement transfer.