Three-Body Recombination of Identical Bosons with a Large Positive Scattering Length at Nonzero Temperature

TL;DR

This paper derives universal functions describing three-body recombination rates for identical bosons with large positive scattering lengths at nonzero temperatures, validated against experimental data for cesium atoms.

Contribution

It introduces a method to calculate universal scaling functions for 3-body recombination at nonzero temperature using the Skorniakov--Ter-Martirosian equation, extending previous zero-temperature results.

Findings

Universal functions accurately predict recombination rates at nonzero temperature.

Good agreement with experimental data for 133Cs atoms.

Method applicable to other bosonic systems with large scattering lengths.

Abstract

For identical bosons with a large scattering length, the dependence of the 3-body recombination rate on the collision energy is determined in the zero-range limit by universal functions of a single scaling variable. There are six scaling functions for angular momentum zero and one scaling function for each higher partial wave. We calculate these universal functions by solving the Skorniakov--Ter-Martirosian equation. The results for the 3-body recombination as a function of the collision energy are in good agreement with previous results from solving the 3-body Schroedinger equation for 4He atoms. The universal scaling functions can be used to calculate the 3-body recombination rate at nonzero temperature. We obtain an excellent fit to the data from the Innsbruck group for 133Cs atoms with a large positive scattering length.