Effective scattering and Efimov physics in the presence of two-body dissipation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how two-body dissipation affects few-body quantum physics, revealing that it introduces complex scattering lengths and suppresses Efimov trimer formation, thereby altering established scaling laws.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the impact of two-body dissipation on scattering and Efimov physics using a two-channel model with explicit relations between dissipation parameters and scattering properties.

Findings

Complex scattering length includes an imaginary part linked to decay rate and effective range.

Two-body dissipation suppresses Efimov trimer states.

Dissipation modifies the discrete scaling law in Efimov physics.

Abstract

Two-body dissipation usually gives rise to a complex interaction. Here, we study the effect of two-body dissipation on few-body physics, including the fundamental two-body effective scattering and the three-body Efimov physics. By employing a two-channel model that incorporates the decay of closed-channel molecules (generating the two-body dissipation), we explicitly relate the real and imaginary part of the inverse scattering length (a_s^{-1}) to closed-channel detuning and decay rate. In particular, we show that the imaginary part of a_s^{-1} is given by the product of the molecule decay rate and the effective range. Such complex scattering length is found to generate an additional imaginary Coulomb potential when three atoms come close to each other, thereby suppressing the formation of trimer bound states and modifying the conventional discrete scaling in Efimov physics.