Efimov Physics: a review

TL;DR

This review discusses the development, experimental verification, and implications of Efimov physics, highlighting its significance in quantum few-body and many-body systems with short-range interactions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical and experimental progress in Efimov physics, emphasizing the role of the three-body parameter and its scaling.

Findings

Efimov states observed in ultracold atomic gases

Three-body parameter scales with interaction range

Efimov effect explains certain nuclear and molecular phenomena

Abstract

This article reviews theoretical and experimental advances in Efimov physics, an array of quantum few-body and many-body phenomena arising for particles interacting via short-range resonant interactions, that is based on the appearance of a scale-invariant three-body attraction theoretically discovered by Vitaly Efimov in 1970. This three-body effect was originally proposed to explain the binding of nuclei such as the triton and the Hoyle state of carbon-12, and later considered as a simple explanation for the existence of some halo nuclei. It was subsequently evidenced in trapped ultra-cold atomic clouds and in diffracted molecular beams of gaseous helium. These experiments revealed that the previously undetermined three-body parameter introduced in the Efimov theory to stabilise the three-body attraction typically scales with the range of atomic interactions. The few- and many-body consequences of the Efimov attraction have been since investigated theoretically, and are expected to be observed in a broader spectrum of physical systems.