Spin 1/2 Fermions in the Unitary Limit.III

TL;DR

This paper investigates the energy of spin 1/2 fermions at the unitary limit, incorporating mean-field effects and off-shell interactions, and finds that these factors significantly influence the energy estimates, bringing them closer to experimental results.

Contribution

The study extends previous models by including dispersion corrections and off-shell effects, providing a more accurate calculation of fermion energy at unitarity.

Findings

Mean-field propagation increases energy estimates significantly.

Dispersion correction suggests a revised energy ratio of approximately 0.4 to 0.5.

Off-shell effects can alter energy calculations by 10% or more for non-zero effective ranges.

Abstract

In scattering theory, the unitary limit is defined by an infinite scattering-length and a zero effective range, corresponding to a phase-shift \pi/2, independent of energy. This condition is satisfied by a rank-1 separable potential V(k,k')=-v(k)v(k') with v^{2}(k)=(4\pi)^{2}(\Lambda^{2}-k^{2})^{-1/2}, \Lambda being the cut-off in momentum space.Previous calculations using a Pauli-corrected ladder summation to calculate the energy of a zero temperature many body system of spin 1/2 fermions with this interaction gave \xi=0.24 (in units of kinetic energy) independent of density and with \Lambda---->infinity. This value of \xi is appreciably smaller than the experimental and that obtained from other calculations, most notably from Monte Carlo, which in principle would be the most reliable. Our previous work did however also show a strong dependence on effective range r_0 (with r_0=0 at unitarity). With an increase to r_0=1.0 the energy varied from \xi~0.38 at k_f=0.6 1/fm to ~0.45 at k_f=1.8 1/fm which is somewhat closer to the Monte-Carlo results. These previous calculations are here extended by including the effect of the previously neglected mean-field propagation, the dispersion correction. This is repulsive and found to increase drastically with decreasing effective range. It is large enough to suggest a revised value of \xi~0.4 <--> ~0.5 independent of r_0. Off-shell effects are also investigated by introducing a rank-2 (phase-shift equivalent) separable potential. Effects of 10% or more in energy could be demonstrated for r_0>0. It is pointed out that a computational cut-off in momentum-space brings in another scale in the in otherwise scale-less unitary problem.