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Quasiparticle properties of long-range impurities in a Bose condensate

Quantum Gases 2025-10-06 v2 Atomic Physics

Abstract

An impurity immersed in a Bose condensate can form a quasiparticle known as a Bose polaron. When the impurity-boson interaction is short-ranged, the quasiparticle properties can be characterized in terms of the impurity-boson scattering length aIBa_{\mathrm{IB}} and the condensate coherence length ξ\xi, a universal description that remains valid irrespective of the bath density n0n_0. Long-ranged interactions -- such as provided by Rydberg or ionic impurities -- introduce an effective interaction range reffr_{\mathrm{eff}} as the third length scale. These competing length scales raise the question of whether a universal description remains valid across different bath densities. In this study, we discuss the quasiparticle nature of long-range impurities and its dependence on the length scales n01/3n_0^{-1/3}, reffr_\mathrm{eff}, and ξ\xi. We employ two complementary theories -- the coherent state Ansatz and the perturbative Gross-Pitaevskii theory -- which incorporate beyond-Fr\"ohlich interactions. We derive an analytical expression for the beyond-Fr\"ohlich effective mass for a contact interaction and numerically compute the effective mass for long-range impurities. We argue that the coupling parameter aIBn01/3|a_{\mathrm{IB}}|n_0^{1/3} remains the principal parameter governing the properties of the polaron. For weak (aIBn01/31|a_\mathrm{IB}|n_0^{1/3}\ll 1) and intermediate (aIBn01/31|a_\mathrm{IB}|n_0^{1/3}\simeq 1) values of the coupling parameter, long-range impurities in a Bose condensate are well-described as quasiparticles with a finite quasiparticle weight and a well-defined effective mass. However, the quasiparticle weight becomes significantly suppressed as the effective impurity volume is occupied by an increasing number of bath particles (reffn01/31r_{\mathrm{eff}}n_0^{1/3} \gg 1).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.12969,
  title  = {Quasiparticle properties of long-range impurities in a Bose condensate},
  author = {T. Alper Yoğurt and Matthew T. Eiles},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.12969},
  year   = {2025}
}