# Clustering of Four-Component Unitary Fermions

## TL;DR

This paper uses quantum Monte Carlo methods to study four-component fermions at unitarity, revealing clustering behaviors and near-degenerate ground states, with implications for nuclear physics and ultracold atomic experiments.

## Contribution

It introduces novel trial wave functions for four-component fermions and demonstrates their effectiveness in analyzing clustering and energy properties at unitarity.

## Key findings

- Ground state energy nearly equals two four-particle systems
- Identification of clustering properties in the system
- Extrapolation to the zero-range limit achieved

## Abstract

Ab initio nuclear physics tackles the problem of strongly interacting four-component fermions. The same setting could foreseeably be probed experimentally in ultracold atomic systems, where two- and three-component experiments have led to major breakthroughs in recent years. Both due to the problem's inherent interest and as a pathway to nuclear physics, in this Letter we study four-component fermions at unitarity via the use of quantum Monte Carlo methods. We explore novel forms of the trial wave function and find one which leads to a ground state of the eight-particle system whose energy is almost equal to that of two four-particle systems. We investigate the clustering properties involved and also extrapolate to the zero-range limit. In addition to being experimentally testable, our results impact the prospects of developing nuclear physics as a perturbation around the unitary limit.