Low-energy atomic scattering: s-wave relation between the interaction potential and the phase shift

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the validity of the on-shell approximation in s-wave scattering for ultracold collisions across different dimensions, showing it becomes exact at low energies for weak potentials, aiding effective interaction modeling.

Contribution

It provides a systematic comparison of the on-shell approximation with exact solutions for square well and delta shell potentials in 1D, 2D, and 3D, highlighting regimes of validity.

Findings

On-shell approximation improves with increasing momentum.

Accuracy increases for weaker potentials.

In the weak interaction limit, the approximation is exact at leading order.

Abstract

We investigate the on-shell approximation in the context of s-wave scattering for ultracold two-body collisions. Our analysis systematically covers spatial dimensions D=1,2,3 , with the aim of identifying the regimes in which the approximation remains valid when applied to commonly used model interaction potentials. Specifically, we focus on the square well and delta shell potentials, both of which admit analytical solutions for the s-wave scattering problem in all dimensions considered. By employing the exact analytical expressions for the s-wave scattering phase shift, we perform a direct comparison between the exact on-shell matrix element of the interaction potential and their corresponding approximations across a range of collision momenta. Particular attention is given to the low-energy regime. Our findings indicate that, although the on-shell approximation generally improves with increasing momentum, its accuracy also improves for weaker potentials. Remarkably, in the limit of weak interactions, we demonstrate that the on-shell approximation becomes exact at leading order. In this regime, the approximation offers a controlled means of deriving the low-momentum expansion of the potential and may serve as a useful tool in constructing effective interactions for quantum field theories.