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Stability of bosonic atomic and molecular condensates near a Feshbach resonance

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

S. Basu
E.J. Mueller

Abstract

We explore the Bose condensed phases of an atomic gas on the molecular side of a Feshbach resonance. In the absence of atom-molecule and molecule-molecule scattering, we show that the atomic condensate is either a saddle point of the free energy with energy always exceeding that of the molecular condensate, or has a negative compressibility (hence unstable to density fluctuations). Therefore no phase transition occurs between the atomic and molecular condensates. We also show that a repulsive molecule-molecule scattering can stabilize a sufficiently dense atomic condensate, leading to the possibility of a phase transition. We caution that three-body processes may render this transition unobservable. © 2008 The American Physical Society.

Date Published

Journal

Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

Volume

78

Issue

5

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-55749109550&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevA.78.053603&partnerID=40&md5=f5ecace916a9e5b6a900195c30ac55f1

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevA.78.053603

Funding Source

0079992
0456261

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