Dimer problem on a spherical surface

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a dimer's behavior on a spherical surface depends on angular momentum, revealing geometry changes and potential for new many-body phenomena in curved ultracold gases.

Contribution

It provides a novel analysis of dimer dynamics on curved surfaces, highlighting the influence of angular momentum on binding energy and geometry.

Findings

Dimer binding energy varies with angular momentum.

Dimer geometry transitions from 2D to 1D due to curvature.

Curved geometry and angular momentum can lead to new many-body effects.

Abstract

We solve the problem of a dimer moving on a spherical surface and find that its binding energy and wave function are sensitive to the total angular momentum. The dimer gets squeezed in the direction orthogonal to the center-of-mass motion and can qualitatively change its geometry from two-dimensional to one-dimensional. These results suggest that combining the curved geometry with finite angular momentum may give rise to qualitatively new many-body phenomena in ultracold shell-shaped gases.