Universal three-body parameter in ultracold 4He*
Abstract
We have analyzed our recently-measured three-body loss rate coefficient for a Bose-Einstein condensate of spin-polarized metastable triplet 4He atoms in terms of Efimov physics. The large value of the scattering length for these atoms, which provides access to the Efimov regime, arises from a nearby potential resonance. We find the loss coefficient to be consistent with the three-body parameter (3BP) found in alkali-metal experiments, where Feshbach resonances are used to tune the interaction. This provides new evidence for a universal 3BP, the first outside the group of alkali-metal elements. In addition, we give examples of other atomic systems without Feshbach resonances but with a large scattering length that would be interesting to analyze once precise measurements of three-body loss are available.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1210.3230,
title = {Universal three-body parameter in ultracold 4He*},
author = {S. Knoop and J. S. Borbely and W. Vassen and S. J. J. M. F. Kokkelmans},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.3230},
year = {2012}
}