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# Phase-locked and phase drift solutions of phase oscillators with asymmetric coupling strengths

## 1 Introduction

Coupled oscillators have been dealt with in wide and diverse areas associated with oscillation and synchronization phenomena. The phenomenon of collective synchronization of phases or frequencies attracts attentions in not only biology but also in physics and engineering. Theoretical studies have been deeply carried out for the case of global coupling, and clarified characters of phase transition of entrained oscillators. The case of local coupling has also been studied in various contexts motivated by rhythmic phenomena in biological systems. They include animal gaits, fish swimming, and the peristaltic movement of gastrointestinal tracts. In recent years, researches of coupled oscillators are extended to the case of non-local (but not global) coupling and more complicated network systems.

Since such complicated networks have, in general, intricate boundaries and inhomogeneous couplings, we have been found little clues to analyses of dynamical behaviour of them. We can, however, analyse some phase-locked solutions for more simple and symmetric trees of couplings. In the case of $`m`$-ary trees with the height $`n`$ and $`m^n`$ leaves, for instance, the system of coupled oscillators has some particular solutions with identical phases in each level, and these solutions are reduced to the phase-locked solutions for chains of oscillators with asymmetric coupling strengths. As well as complicated network structures, intricate dynamical processes appear in biological systems, of which it is impossible to drag the inherent or isolated parts out. It is one of the ways to study such systems that we construct models from the phenomenological evidence and draw qualitative features of them. When we compare the models with data observed in real systems such as efficiency of movement and the transport volume, we will need to know the dynamical behaviour and solutions of the models in detail.

In this paper, we study chains of coupled phase oscillators. It is the remarkable point that we can derive phase-locked solutions of the systems by algebraic calculations, even if the coupling strengths are asymmetric or the natural frequencies are inhomogeneous. Moreover, the analytical form of the solutions is not much cumbersome, and thus the profile of solutions are easy to see. From the existence conditions of the phase-locked solutions, we can estimate transition points of phase-locked to phase drift states.

We present coupled phase oscillators with asymmetric coupling strengths in the following section, and derive the phase-locked solutions in section 3. The profile of the phase-locked solutions and bifurcation phenomena are studied for the cases of asymmetric coupling strengths (section 4) and of a linear frequency gradient (section 5). In section 6, we discuss the difference analogue of the continuous system corresponding to the oscillator systems with asymmetric coupling strengths.

## 2 Coupled phase oscillators

A linear chain of phase oscillators with asymmetric couplings is governed by the following equations of phases $`\theta _j`$ ($`j=0,\mathrm{},n`$):

$`\dot{\theta }_0`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _0+a_u^{}h(\theta _1\theta _0),`$
$`\dot{\theta }_j`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _j+a_dh(\theta _{j1}\theta _j)+a_uh(\theta _{j+1}\theta _j),(j=1,\mathrm{},n1),`$ (1)
$`\dot{\theta }_n`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _n+a_d^{}h(\theta _{n1}\theta _n),`$
where $`\omega _j`$ is the natural frequency, $`a_u`$ and $`a_d`$ are coupling coefficients, and $`h`$ is a periodic function. For the $`0`$th and $`n`$th oscillators, coupling coefficients, $`a_u^{}`$ and $`a_d^{}`$ are set according to the boundary conditions.

Introducing new variables defined by neighbouring sites,

$$\psi _j:=\theta _j\theta _{j1},d_j:=\omega _j\omega _{j1},$$

we obtain $`n`$ equations for the phase differences:

$`\dot{𝝍}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒅+A_u𝒉_+A_d𝒉_{},`$ (2)
$`𝝍`$ $`:=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{c}\psi _1\hfill \\ \psi _2\hfill \\ \mathrm{}\hfill \\ \psi _{n1}\hfill \\ \psi _n\hfill \end{array}\right],𝒅:=\left[\begin{array}{c}d_1\hfill \\ d_2\hfill \\ \mathrm{}\hfill \\ d_{n1}\hfill \\ d_n\hfill \end{array}\right],𝒉_\pm :=\left[\begin{array}{c}h(\pm \psi _1)\hfill \\ h(\pm \psi _2)\hfill \\ \mathrm{}\hfill \\ h(\pm \psi _{n1})\hfill \\ h(\pm \psi _n)\hfill \end{array}\right],`$ (18)
$`A_u`$ $`:=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill a_u^{}& \hfill a_u& & & \\ & \hfill a_u& \hfill a_u& & \\ & & \hfill \mathrm{}& \hfill \mathrm{}& \\ & & & \hfill a_u& \hfill a_u\\ & & & & \hfill a_u\end{array}\right],`$ (24)
$`A_d`$ $`:=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill a_d& & & & \\ \hfill a_d& \hfill a_d& & & \\ & \hfill \mathrm{}& \hfill \mathrm{}& & \\ & & \hfill a_d& \hfill a_d& \\ & & & \hfill a_d& \hfill a_d^{}\end{array}\right].`$ (30)
In the analysis for phase locked/drift solutions shown below, we assume $`h`$ is an odd function, $`h(\psi )=h(\psi )`$, and thereby $`𝒉_{}=𝒉_+`$.

## 3 Phase lags

Phase-locked solutions of eq. 2 mean all the oscillators have the same period and the phase difference is constant, $`\dot{\psi }_j=0`$. Thus they are solutions of

$$A𝒉+𝒅=𝒐,$$
(31)
where $`A:=A_u+A_d`$ and $`𝒉:=𝒉_+`$. We solve formal solution of the above equations under the free boundary conditions (mutual entrainment), and one-sided coupling conditions (forced entrainment).

Fast, we study the case of free boundary conditions, $`a_u^{}=a_u`$, $`a_d^{}=a_d`$, where the boundary oscillators and their neighbours are coupled in the bi-directional manner. Under these conditions, all of the oscillators have the same period

$$\dot{\theta }_j=\mathrm{\Omega }_n/\mathrm{\Lambda }_n,$$
(32)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_n`$ are defined below. From eq. 31, we get the solution $`h_j`$ ($`j=1,\mathrm{},n`$), the $`j`$th element of $`𝒉`$, in the form of

$$a_dh_j=\mathrm{\Delta }_{nj}(\mathrm{\Delta }_n/\mathrm{\Lambda }_n)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{nj},$$
(33)
or

$$a_uh_j=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{j1}(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_n/\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_n)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{j1},$$
(34)
where

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_j:={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}}\omega _k\left({\displaystyle \frac{a_u}{a_d}}\right)^k,\mathrm{\Lambda }_j:={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}}({\displaystyle \frac{a_u}{a_d}})^k,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_j:={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}}({\displaystyle \frac{a_d}{a_u}})^k,`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_j:={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}}(\omega _{nj+k}\omega _0)({\displaystyle \frac{a_u}{a_d}})^k,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_j:={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}}(\omega _n\omega _{jk})({\displaystyle \frac{a_d}{a_u}})^k.`$
The phase difference, $`\psi _j`$, is obtained by inverting eq. 33. When the coupling function $`h`$ is continuous and bounded, solutions exist only if $`\mathrm{min}h<h_j<\mathrm{max}h`$ for all $`j`$. The linear-stability conditions of solutions are obtained from the eigenvalue problem of the linearized matrix, $`A𝒉^{}`$, where the $`j`$th elements of $`𝒉^{}`$ is $`h^{}(\psi _j)`$.

We comment the cases of forced oscillations, that is, one of the terminals is a forced oscillator. Suppose that the $`0`$th oscillator is one-sided coupling to its neighbour, $`a_u^{}=0`$, but the opposite end satisfies the free boundary condition, $`a_d^{}=a_d`$. Under these conditions, a solution of eq. 31 is $`h_j=\mathrm{\Delta }_{nj}/a_d`$. If the boundary conditions are exchanged, that is, the $`n`$th oscillator is a forced oscillator, $`a_d^{}=0`$, and the $`0`$th oscillator satisfies the free condition, $`a_u^{}=a_u`$, a solution of eq. 31 is obtained in the form of $`h_j=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{j1}/a_u`$.

## 4 Asymmetry couplings

We study the mutual entrainment to a pacemaker with asymmetry couplings in the present section. We assume that all the oscillators have the same natural frequency but only the $`0`$th oscillator, the pacemaker, has the high frequency. If we set $`\omega _0>0`$ and $`\omega _1=\mathrm{}=\omega _n=0`$, eq. 33 becomes

$$h_j=\frac{\omega _0\mathrm{\Lambda }_{nj}}{a_d\mathrm{\Lambda }_n}.$$
(35)
The entrained frequency is obtained from eq. 32,

$$\overline{\omega }_n=\{\begin{array}{cc}\omega _0/(1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^n),\hfill & \hfill (a_u>a_d),\\ \omega _0\lambda ^n/(1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^n),\hfill & \hfill (a_u<a_d),\end{array}$$
(36)
where $`\lambda :=\mathrm{max}(a_u,a_d)/\mathrm{min}(a_u,a_d)`$. We set $`a_u`$, $`a_d`$, and $`h^{}(0)`$ are positive below. For numerical calculations shown in figures, we chose the coupling function as $`h(\psi )=\mathrm{sin}\psi +0.1\mathrm{sin}2\psi 0.03\mathrm{sin}3\psi `$ to obtain generic results.

When the coupling strengths are asymmetric, $`a_ua_d`$, the profile of $`h_j`$ given in eq. 35 has the exponential dependence on $`j`$. In fig. 1, we illustrate some features of phase-locked solutions: the profile of coupling interaction, phase difference and phase lag from the pacemaker. Calculations of these quantities are carried out for the system of $`20`$ oscillators ($`n=19`$) and for three ratios of couplings, $`a_u/a_d=2`$, $`1`$, and $`1/2`$. If the coupling function $`h(\psi )`$ is approximated to the linear function for small $`\psi `$, then the dependence of the phase lag, $`\theta _j\theta _0`$, on $`j`$ is almost (i) exponential for $`a_u>a_d`$, (ii) parabolic for $`a_u=a_d`$, and (iii) linear for $`a_u<a_d`$. Such dependence is inherited for more complicated network systems on trees.

For small coupling strengths, the phase-locked state is broken and the phase of each oscillator drifts from the phase of the pacemaker. Such a phase drift solution has two regions of the frequency-entrainment since the pacemaker and other oscillators have different natural frequencies. The phase drift occurs between these two regions. Fig. 2 shows the transition between phase-locked and phase drift solutions for the three ratios of $`a_u`$ and $`a_d`$. Each system has $`10`$ oscillators ($`n=9`$). The averaged frequency of the $`j`$th oscillator and the coupling strength are defined by

$$\omega _j:=\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}\left(\theta _j(t)\theta _j(0)\right)/t,ϵ:=\mathrm{min}(a_u,a_d)\mathrm{max}h.$$
(37)
In fig. 2, $`\omega _j`$ is obtained from numerical integrations of eq. 1 with the step width in $`ϵ`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ=10^3\times \mathrm{max}h`$. We can estimate the transition point of phase-locked and phase drift solutions from the necessary condition for the existence of the phase-locked solutions,

$$ϵ>ϵ_n:=\omega _0\frac{1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^{n1}}{1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^n}.$$

The critical point $`(ϵ_n,\overline{\omega }_n)`$ is plotted by the open circle in fig. 2.

Numerical calculations show that phase drift states always consist of two regions: the pacemaker and the other oscillators. It implies that if the pacemaker can entrain its neighbouring oscillator, all oscillators will be entrained to the pacemaker, but if not so, no oscillators entrained to the pacemaker. It is also possible to estimate this entrainment feature from the existence condition of the phase-locked solutions. We assume that the pacemaker is entraining $`j`$ oscillators. Then we divide the system into two sets of coupling oscillators: (i) upper $`(j+1)`$ oscillators including the pacemaker, and (ii) lower $`(nj)`$ oscillators. For the upper set (i), the phase-locked solution exist only if

$$\omega _0\frac{1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^{j1}}{1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^j}<ϵ.$$
(38)
For the lower set (ii), we add one oscillator with the entrainment frequency of the set (i) to the upper side as the pacemaker. If the coupling strength $`ϵ`$ satisfies

$$ϵ<\overline{\omega }_j\frac{1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^{nj1}}{1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^{nj}},$$
(39)
then the phase drift solution exists for the set (ii) with the pacemaker. Since no value of the coupling strength $`ϵ`$ satisfies both of conditions 38 and 39, oscillators entraining to the pacemaker are all or none.

## 5 Linear frequency gradient

Daido  has studied chains of coupled phase oscillators with a linear gradient of natural frequencies by numerical calculations. He has shown some scaling properties in the frequency diagram, a plot of averaged frequencies against the coupling strength. In the present section, we attempt to derive some of them from eq. 33.

We assume that the natural frequency of the $`j`$th oscillator is $`\omega _j:=j/n`$ and coupling strengths are symmetric $`a:=a_u=a_d`$. Then a phase-locked solution is obtained from eq. 33 in the form of

$$h_j=\frac{\delta }{a}\frac{j(n+1j)}{2},$$
(40)
where $`\delta :=1/n`$ is the difference of natural frequency between neibouring oscillators. The entrained frequency of this solution is

$$\overline{\omega }_n=\delta \frac{n}{2}\left(=\frac{1}{2}\right).$$
(41)
We set $`a`$ and $`h^{}(0)`$ are positive, and chose the coupling function as the previous section for numerical calculations shown in figures below.

We note that $`h_j`$ takes the maximal value at the centre of the chain of entrained oscillators from eq. 40. If the phase difference $`\psi _j`$ is small enough to approximate that the coupling function $`h(\psi )`$ has the linear dependence on $`\psi `$, $`\psi _j`$ has the convex dependence on $`j`$ as well as $`h_j`$. Then the phase lag $`(\theta _j\theta _0)`$ has an inflection point at the centre of the chain. Figure 3 shows the profile of phase lags and other variables.

When the coupling strength is diminished, the entrained region is divided into some clusters of frequency-entrained oscillators, called frequency plateaus. In the limiting case that the coupling strength is vanishing, entrained domains of oscillators will split into each oscillator.

Although the frequency diagram shows fine and complicated bifurcation structure, we can estimate the approximate arrangement of transition points by means of the necessary conditions for existence of phase-locked solutions. To illustrate the frequency diagram, we define the averaged frequency of the $`j`$th oscillator and the coupling strength as eq. 37. We pick out the frequency plateau with $`m`$ oscillators from the $`(n+1)`$-oscillator system, and consider these oscillators as the isolated system with the free boundary conditions in both sides. Phase-locked solutions of the $`m`$-oscillator system exist only if

$$ϵ>ϵ_m:=\{\begin{array}{cc}(\delta /8)m^2,\hfill & \hfill (m:\text{even}),\\ (\delta /8)(m^21),\hfill & \hfill (m:\text{odd}).\end{array}$$
(42)
The entrained frequency is the average of natural frequencies,

$`\overline{\omega }_{k,k+m1}`$ $`=`$ $`(\omega _k+\mathrm{}+\omega _{k+m1})/m`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`\delta (m+2k1)/2,(k=0,\mathrm{},nm).`$
In fig. 4, we put the approximate critical point $`(\overline{\omega }_{k,k+m1},ϵ_m)`$ on the frequency diagrams for the system of 10 oscillators ($`n=9`$). Some of approximate points are located near the transition points, but others have no transition points around them. The latter points indicate that it is impossible for the system to have some states such as small plateaus located near the boundaries or extremely asymmetric arrangements of plateaus. We obtain the scaling behaviour of $`\overline{\omega }_{0,m1}`$ to $`ϵ_m/ϵ_{n+1}`$ from eqs. 42 and 43 as

$$\overline{\omega }_{0,m1}\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{ϵ_m}{ϵ_{n+1}}\right)^{1/2}$$
(44)
in the limit of $`n\mathrm{}`$.

## 6 Discussion

We can consider the phase-difference system 2 is derived from some continuous partial differential equation by means of the difference analogue. If the coupling function $`h`$ is assumed to be the odd function, the continuous system corresponding to eq. 2 becomes

$$_t\psi +\mathrm{\Gamma }_xh(\psi )=d(x)+D_x^2h(\psi ),$$
(45)
where $`x`$ is the spatial coordinate. Coefficients $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`D`$ are defined by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }:=(a_da_u)\mathrm{\Delta }x,D:=\frac{a_d+a_u}{2}(\mathrm{\Delta }x)^2$$

for the difference interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$. Here we took the central difference for the differential of first order. In the continuous system 45, entrained solutions are obtained from the ordinary differential equation in the form of

$$D\frac{\mathrm{d}^2h}{\mathrm{d}x^2}\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{\mathrm{d}h}{\mathrm{d}x}+d(x)=0.$$
(46)
When all of natural frequencies are identical, $`d(x)0`$, solutions of eq. 46 are

$$h(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}c+b\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Gamma }x/D),\hfill & \hfill (\mathrm{\Gamma }0),\\ c+bx,\hfill & \hfill (\mathrm{\Gamma }=0),\end{array}$$

where $`b`$ and $`c`$ are constants defined by boundary conditions. These solutions are consistent with eq. 35 and fig. 1. In another case corresponding to the linear frequency gradient, $`d(x)=\delta `$ (const.), a solution of eq. 46 are obtained in the form of

$$h(x)=c+bx(\delta /2D)x^2.$$

This is also consistent with eq. 40 and fig. 3, if we set arbitrary constants $`b`$ and $`c`$ in proper values.

Here we give more examples. When the both cases mentioned above are combined, that is, the natural frequency has the linear gradient in space, $`d(x)=\delta `$, and coupling strengths are asymmetric, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }0`$, a solution of eq. 46 is

$$h(x)=c+(\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta /D)x+b\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Gamma }x/D).$$

Even if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0`$, we can obtain the similar dependence of $`h`$ on $`x`$ from the system in which the natural frequency has the exponential gradient in space as $`d(x)=\gamma \mathrm{exp}\left(\gamma (xL)\right)`$ ($`L`$ is the system size). A solution of this system is

$$h(x)=c+bx(1/D\gamma )\mathrm{exp}\left(\gamma (xL)\right).$$

In the last, we comment on the case that the coupling functions is divided into the odd and even parts. In general, the division of a function $`h(x)`$ is carried out in the form of

$`h(x)`$ $`=`$ $`h_{\mathrm{odd}}(x)+h_{\mathrm{even}}(x),`$
$`h_{\mathrm{odd}}(x):={\displaystyle \frac{h(x)h(x)}{2}},h_{\mathrm{even}}(x):={\displaystyle \frac{h(x)+h(x)}{2}}.`$
The system of coupled phase oscillators 2 is derived from the following continuous system by the discretization of space

$`_t\psi +\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{odd}}_xh_{\mathrm{odd}}(\psi )\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{even}}_xh_{\mathrm{even}}(\psi )`$
$`=d(x)+D_{\mathrm{odd}}_x^2h_{\mathrm{odd}}(\psi )D_{\mathrm{even}}_x^2h_{\mathrm{even}}(\psi ),`$ (47)
where coefficients are defined as

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{odd}}:=(a_da_u)\mathrm{\Delta }x,\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{even}}:=(a_d+a_u)\mathrm{\Delta }x`$
$`D_{\mathrm{odd}}:={\displaystyle \frac{a_d+a_u}{2}}(\mathrm{\Delta }x)^2,D_{\mathrm{even}}:={\displaystyle \frac{a_da_u}{2}}(\mathrm{\Delta }x)^2.`$
We note that the coefficients of advection and diffusion terms are almost exchanged between the odd and even parts,

$$D_{\mathrm{odd}}=(\mathrm{\Delta }x/2)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{even}},D_{\mathrm{even}}=(\mathrm{\Delta }x/2)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{odd}}.$$

It is also possible to obtain the phase-locked solutions from eq. 47 as above, but we do not mention them here.

## 7 Conclusions

We obtained the phase-locked solutions of coupled phase oscillators with asymmetric coupling strengths or inhomogeneous natural frequencies. These solutions show the different profiles of phase lags between the three types of ratios of the upward to downward coupling strength. The phase differences obtained in analytical form, must be applicable to consider the efficiencies of biological motions and transportations based on the collective oscillation. Moreover, inherent structures of the real systems, the asymmetry of couplings, for example, are suggested by the spatio-temporal patterns observed in the systems.

From the existence conditions of phase-locked solutions, we derived transition points from phase-locked to phase drift states. We also obtained that the length of entrained region to the pacemaker is approximately zero or the system size. However, for the discrete time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations, the number of entraining oscillators to the pacemaker depends on the coupling strength, and the sequence of bifurcations is observed numerically.

Next, we showed the profiles of phase-locked solutions for the linear frequency gradient. The phase differences take the maximal absolute value around the centre of the chain system. This means that the phase drift tends to occur around the centre when the coupling strengths are diminished. As well as the case of the asymmetric coupling strengths, we estimate the approximate transition points in the frequency diagram from the existence conditions of phase-locked solutions, and derive some scaling properties.

## Figures


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# Universality in the Three-Body Problem for 4He Atoms

## I Introduction

The interactions of nonrelativistic particles with extremely low energies, such as cold atoms, are determined primarily by their S-wave scattering length $`a`$. Typically $`|a|`$ is of the order of the natural length scale $`l`$ associated with low-energy interactions, which for short-range interactions is given by the range of the potential. If $`|a|`$ is much larger than $`l`$, however, low-energy atoms exhibit universal properties that are independent of the interaction potential. In the two-body sector, universality implies that low-energy observables are determined by the single parameter $`a`$ up to corrections suppressed by $`l/|a|`$. In particular, the cross section for low-energy atom-atom scattering is a simple function of $`E`$ and $`a`$ only. If $`a>0`$, there is also a shallow two-body bound state (the dimer) whose binding energy is determined by $`a`$: $`B_2=\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$, where $`m`$ is the mass of the atoms textbook .

Efimov showed that if the two-body scattering length is large, there are also universal properties in the three-body sector Efi71 . The most remarkable is a sequence of three-body bound states (trimers) with binding energies geometrically spaced in the interval between $`\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$ and $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$. In addition to the binding energies of these Efimov trimers, the low-energy three-body observables include scattering rates for three atoms and, if $`a>0`$, an atom and a dimer. The consequences of universality in the three-body sector are simplest if the potential supports no deep two-body bound states with binding energies of order $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$. In this case, the low-energy three-body observables are determined by $`a`$ and a single three-body parameter up to corrections suppressed by $`l/|a|`$. A simple physical observable that can be used as the three-body parameter is the binding energy of the Efimov state closest to threshold. Alternatively, the three-body parameter can be specified by a boundary condition on the three-body wave function at short distances. In Ref. BHK99 , the authors introduced a more abstract three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ with dimensions of wave number (defined in Eq. (10) below) which is particularly convenient for quantitative calculations within the effective field theory approach.

A large two-body scattering length can be obtained by fine-tuning a parameter in the interatomic potential to bring a real or virtual two-body bound state close to the 2-atom threshold. The fine tuning can be obtained experimentally by adjusting an external variable, such as a magnetic field Festh  or an electric field NFJ99 . Large scattering lengths for 23Na and 85Rb atoms have been obtained in the laboratory by tuning an external magnetic field to the neighbourhood of a Feshbach resonance Fesex . The fine tuning can also be provided accidentally by nature. A prime example is the 4He atom, whose scattering length $`a104`$ Å Gri00  is much larger than its effective range $`r_s7.3`$ Å JaA95  which can be taken as an estimate of the natural low-energy length scale $`l`$.

The large scattering length for 4He makes this atom an ideal example of universality. The experimental information on low-energy 4He atoms is rather limited. Using diffraction of a molecular beam of small 4He clusters from a transmission grating, the bond length of the 4He dimer has recently been measured Gri00 : $`r=(52\pm 4)`$ Å, which is an order magnitude larger than the effective range. The scattering length $`a=\left(104_{18}^{+8}\right)`$Å and the dimer binding energy $`B_2=\left(1.1_{0.2}^{+0.3}\right)`$ mK were derived from the measured bond length using the zero range approximation Gri00 . The 4He trimer and several larger 4He clusters have been observed STo96 ; BST02 , but no quantitative experimental information about their binding energies is available to date. However, there have been extensive theoretical calculations of the few-body problem for 4He using modern two-body potentials LM2M2 ; TTY . Theoretical calculations of trimer binding energies have also improved, so that they now have several digits of accuracy NFJ98 ; RoY00 ; MSSK01 ; Lew97 . They indicate that there are two trimers: a ground state with binding energy $`B_3^{(0)}`$ and an excited state with binding energy $`B_3^{(1)}`$. The ground state binding energies of larger 4He clusters have been calculated using the diffusion Monte Carlo method Lew97 . Their excited state binding energies have been calculated using a combination of Monte Carlo methods and the hyperspherical adiabatic approximation BlG00 . There have also been some calculations of three-body scattering observables. The S-wave phase shifts for atom-dimer scattering have been calculated in Refs. BHK99 ; MSSK01 . The three-body recombination rate has been calculated at threshold FRS96 ; NiM99 ; EGB99 ; BBH00  and as a function of the energy SEG02 .

Universality implies that in the limit of large scattering length all low-energy three-body observables are determined by the scattering length $`a`$ (or equivalently the dimer binding energy $`B_2`$) and one three-body parameter such as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. In order to determine this parameter, a low-energy three-body observable is required as input. We can take advantage of the accurate calculations of the trimer binding energies for modern 4He potentials by using $`B_3^{(1)}`$ to determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for 4He. Once this parameter is determined, universality can be used to predict all other low-energy three-body observables for 4He atoms.

We can also exploit accurate theoretical calculations for older 4He potentials to demonstrate the nontrivial nature of universality in the three-body sector FTD99 ; DFT00 . Scaling variables are dimensionless combinations of physical observables. Universality implies that three-body scaling variables are nontrivial universal functions of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. By eliminating the dependence on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, we can express one scaling variable as a universal function of any other scaling variable. The various 4He potentials have slightly different scattering lengths $`a`$ and also different values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. Therefore, if one scaling variable is plotted as a function of a second, the points for various 4He potentials should all lie along a universal line. Frederico, Tomio, Delfino, and Amorim calculated the scaling function relating $`B_3^{(1)}/B_3^{(0)}`$ to $`B_2/B_3^{(0)}`$ and showed that the points for various 4He potentials lie close to the universal scaling curve FTD99 ; DFT00 .

In this paper, we collect all the information that is currently available on the universal properties in the three-body system of 4He atoms. We go beyond the work in Refs. FTD99 ; DFT00  in various respects. We give explicit parametrizations in terms of $`a`$ and the three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for many low-energy three-body observables, including Efimov binding energies, atom-dimer scattering phase shifts, and the three-body recombination rate. We also calculate additional scaling functions and estimate the effective range corrections. In Section II, we briefly review universality in the two-body sector. In Section III, we discuss the universal properties of the trimer binding energies. We determine the three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for various 4He potentials from the excited state binding energy $`B_3^{(1)}`$ and use universality to predict the ground state energy $`B_3^{(0)}`$. We also demonstrate universality by exhibiting the correlation between the scaling variables $`B_3^{(0)}/B_2`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}/B_2`$ for various 4He potentials. In Sections IV and V, we discuss the universal properties in atom-dimer scattering and three-body recombination, respectively. We use universality to predict the S-wave scattering length $`a_{12}`$ and effective range $`r_{s,12}`$ for atom-dimer scattering as well as the rate constant for three-body recombination at threshold. We also demonstrate universality by exhibiting the correlations between the scaling variable $`a_{12}/a`$ and the energy scaling variables for various 4He potentials. Section VI contains a summary and the outlook for using universality as the basis for a quantitative description of cold atoms.

## II Two-Body Sector

We begin by reviewing the universal properties in the two-body sector for 4He textbook . We use the phrase “low-energy” to refer to energies close to the threshold for free atoms. There is a natural length scale $`l`$ for low-energy observables. For a short-range potential, $`l`$ is set by the range. If the potential has a van der Waals tail, $`V(r)C_6/r^6`$, the natural low-energy length scale is $`l(mC_6/\mathrm{}^2)^{1/4}`$. The natural energy scale for low-energy observables is $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$. For 4He, $`C_6=1.46`$ a.u. which leads to $`l=5`$ Å and $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2=0.4`$ K. Universality occurs because a parameter in the two-body potential has been tuned such that the scattering length is unnaturally large. The scattering length $`a=104`$ Å Gri00  for 4He is much larger than $`l`$. We can interpret the large scattering length as the result of an accidental fine tuning by nature of either a parameter in the two-body potential, such as its overall strength, or of the mass of the 4He atom. The 3He atom has a mass that is only about $`3/4`$ of that of 4He, and its scattering length is $`7.1`$ Å LM2M2 , close in magnitude to the natural low-energy length scale.

If $`|a|l`$, universality can be used to describe the low-energy observables for atoms in spite of the fact that the van der Waals tail makes the potential long-range. Explicit expressions for the scattering length and effective range for a potential with a van der Waals tail have been derived in Ref. Flam93 . A long-range potential introduces nonanalytic behavior in the dependence of the scattering amplitudes on the wavevector $`𝐤`$. However if the potential falls off like $`1/r^6`$, this nonanalytic behavior enters first at 4th order in $`k`$. Such effects can not be reproduced by a short-range potential. Fortunately, their effects on low-energy observables are suppressed by 4 powers of $`l/a`$. We will focus on the universality predictions at leading order in $`l/a`$ and also on the effective range corrections that are first order in $`l/a`$. At this level of accuracy, the effects of the van der Waals tail on low-energy observables can be reproduced by a short-range potential. Realistic interatomic potentials will therefore exhibit the same universal characteristics as short-range potentials.

The two-body observables are the differential cross sections for two-body scattering and the binding energies for two-body bound states. The differential cross section for the elastic scattering of two identical spinless bosons with total energy $`E=\mathrm{}^2k^2/m`$ has the general form

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=4\left|\underset{L\mathrm{even}}{}\frac{2L+1}{k\mathrm{cot}\delta _L(k)ik}P_L(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\right|^2,$$
(1)
where $`\delta _L(k)`$ is the phase shift for the $`L`$’th partial wave. The total cross section is obtained from Eq. (1) by integrating over a solid angle of $`2\pi `$ to avoid counting identical particles twice. At low energies, the cross section is dominated by the $`L=0`$ “S-wave” term. The effective range expansion of $`k\mathrm{cot}\delta _0(k)`$ has the form

$$k\mathrm{cot}\delta _0(k)=\frac{1}{a}+\frac{1}{2}r_sk^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(2)
The first two coefficients define the scattering length $`a`$ and the effective range $`r_s`$. The natural size for these coefficients is the low-energy length scale $`l`$. The binding energies of the two-body bound states are determined by the poles of the scattering amplitude. For S-wave bound states, the binding energies are $`B_2^{(n)}=\mathrm{}^2\kappa _n^2/m`$, where $`\kappa _n`$ is a solution to the equation

$$i\kappa \mathrm{cot}\delta _0(i\kappa )+\kappa =0.$$
(3)
The natural energy scale for a bound state close to threshold is $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$.

If the scattering length $`a`$ is unnaturally large, the differential cross section exhibits universal behavior at energies small compared to $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{4a^2}{1+k^2a^2},kl1,|a|l.$$
(4)
The leading correction comes from the effective range. At wave number $`k`$ of order $`(r_sa)^{1/2}`$ or smaller, the error is of order $`r_s/a`$. At larger wave numbers, the error increases like $`k^2r_s^2`$ and becomes of order one at $`k`$ of order $`1/r_s`$. Note that the differential cross section (4) is determined as a function of $`k`$ by the single parameter $`a`$.

If $`a`$ is large and positive, there is one additional low-energy observable. There is a shallow two-body S-wave bound state that we will refer to as “the dimer”. Up to corrections suppressed by $`l/a`$, its binding energy is

$$B_2=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{ma^2},al.$$
(5)
Alternatively, if we take $`B_2`$ as input, universality gives a prediction for the scattering length:

$$a_B\frac{\mathrm{}}{\sqrt{mB_2}}.$$
(6)
The leading correction to the universal prediction for $`B_2`$ in (5) comes from the effective range. If we truncate the effective range expansion (2) after the $`k^2`$ term, Eq. (3) is a quadratic equation with two solutions:

$$B_2^{(\pm )}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m}\frac{2}{r_s^2}\left[1\frac{r_s}{a}\pm \sqrt{12\frac{r_s}{a}}\right].$$
(7)
The solution $`B_2^{(+)}`$ is an artifact of the truncation. We would expect a state with such an energy only if the higher order terms in the effective range expansion are unnaturally small. The solution $`B_2^{()}`$ is the binding energy of the shallow dimer. If we expand to first order in $`r_s/a`$, we obtain

$$B_2^{()}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{ma^2}\left[1+\frac{r_s}{a}\right].$$
(8)
The corrections from higher orders in the effective range expansion (2) are suppressed by $`l^2/a^2`$ and should therefore be comparable in magnitude to the $`r_s^2/a^2`$ correction.

We now consider the two-body observables for 4He. In Table 1, we give the calculated scattering length MSSK01 , the effective range JaA95 , and the dimer binding energies MSSK01  for four commonly used potentials: two modern potentials LM2M2 LM2M2  and TTY TTY , and two older potentials HFDHE2 HFDHE2  and HFD-B HFD-B .

In Table 1, we also give some simple theoretical predictions for two-body observables. We give the prediction $`a_B`$ for the scattering length obtained from (6) by using $`B_2`$ as input. We also give two predictions for the dimer binding energy $`B_2`$ using the scattering data $`a`$ and $`r_s`$ as input. They are the universality prediction in Eq. (5) and the prediction including the first-order effective range correction in Eq. (8). We can obtain estimates of the theoretical errors in approaches based on the universality at large $`a`$ by comparing those approximations with the calculated value of $`B_2`$. The universality prediction $`\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$ differs from $`B_2`$ by at most 8% and the errors decrease to at most 0.7% if the first order effective range correction is included. This suggests that predictions of low-energy observables based on universality should have an accuracy of about 10% and that that one may be able to reduce the errors to about 1% by including effective range corrections.

## III Trimer Binding Energies

The most dramatic prediction of universality in the three-body sector with large scattering length is the existence of Efimov states Efi71 . They are a sequence of shallow three-body bound states with binding energies much smaller than $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$. If a parameter in the two-body potential is tuned such that $`a\pm \mathrm{}`$, the number of these states increases roughly as $`\mathrm{ln}(|a|/l)/\pi `$. The spacing of the deeper states is roughly geometric, with the ratio of successive binding energies approaching 515. The suggestion that the excited state of the 4He trimer is an Efimov state was first made in Ref. LDD77 . Accurate calculations using modern potentials support that interpretation NFJ98 ; MSSK01 ; RoY00 ; ELG96 . In Refs. BHK99 ; BHK02 ; FTD99 , it was argued that the trimer ground state is also an Efimov state. If it is an Efimov state, universality can be used to predict its binding energy. We will show that the resulting predictions are within the errors expected from effective range corrections. We will also give a definitive criterion for a three-body bound state to be an Efimov state.

Efimov derived some powerful constraints on low-energy three-body observables for systems with large scattering length Efi71 . They follow from the approximate scale-invariance at length scales $`R`$ in the region $`lR|a|`$ together with the conservation of probability. He introduced polar variables $`H`$ and $`\xi `$ in the plane whose axes are $`1/a`$ and the energy variable $`\mathrm{sgn}(E)|mE|^{1/2}/\mathrm{}`$. The angular variable $`\xi `$ is

$`\xi `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}(a\sqrt{mB_3}/\mathrm{}),a>0,`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`\pi +\mathrm{arctan}(|a|\sqrt{mB_3}/\mathrm{}),a<0.`$
Efimov showed that low-energy three-body observables are determined by a few universal functions of the angle $`\xi `$. In particular, the binding energies of the Efimov states are solutions to an equation involving a single universal function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$ Efi71 . Efimov’s equation for the binding energies reads Efi71 ; BHK02

$$B_3+\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{ma^2}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^2}{m}e^{2\pi n/s_0}\mathrm{exp}\left[\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\xi \right)/s_0\right],$$
(10)
where $`s_01.00624`$ is a transcendental number that satisfies the equation

$$\sqrt{3}s_0\mathrm{cosh}(\pi s_0/2)=8\mathrm{sinh}(\pi s_0/6).$$
(11)
We use a three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ that was first introduced in Ref. BHK99  through a rather technical definition specific to an effective field theory. Efimov’s Eq. (10) together with the explicit parametrization of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$ given below in Eqs. (12-14) provides an equivalent definition of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. Note that we measure $`B_3`$ from the 3-atom threshold, so $`B_3>B_2`$ for $`a>0`$. If the universal function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$ is known, the Efimov binding energies $`B_3`$ can be calculated as a function of $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ by solving Eq. (10) for different values of the integer $`n`$. Eq. (10) has an exact discrete scaling symmetry: if there is an Efimov state with binding energy $`B_3`$ for the parameters $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, then there is also an Efimov state with binding energy $`\lambda ^2B_3`$ for the parameters $`\lambda ^1a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ if $`\lambda =\mathrm{exp}[n^{}\pi /s_0]`$ with $`n^{}`$ an integer. Because of this symmetry, Eq. (10) defines $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ only up to multiplicative factors of $`\mathrm{exp}[\pi /s_0]`$. If $`a>0`$, the scattering length $`a`$ in Eqs. (9, 10) can be replaced by $`a_B`$ defined in Eq. (6). The change in the predictions for $`B_3`$ when $`a_B`$ is used instead of $`a`$ can be taken as an estimate of the theoretical error associated with effective range corrections.

The universal function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$ could be determined by solving the 3-body Schrödinger equation for the Efimov binding energies in various potentials whose scattering lengths are so large that effective range corrections are negligible. It can be calculated more easily by using the effective field theory of Ref. BHK99  in which the effective range can be set to zero. In Ref. BHK99 , the dependence of the binding energy on $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ was calculated for the shallowest Efimov state and $`a>0`$. In Ref. BHK02 , the binding energies of the three lowest Efimov states were calculated for both signs of $`a`$ and used to extract the universal function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$.

In Fig. 1, we plot $`(mB_3/\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^2)^{1/4}`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{sgn}(a)(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}|a|)^{1/2}`$ for these three branches of Efimov states. The binding energies for deeper Efimov states and for shallower states near $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}|a|)^{1/2}=0`$ can be obtained from the discrete scaling symmetry. Parametrizations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$ in various regions for $`\xi `$ were obtained by fitting the Efimov spectrum BHK02 :

$`\xi [\frac{3\pi }{8},\frac{\pi }{4}]:\mathrm{\Delta }=3.10x^29.63x2.18,x=(\pi /4\xi )^{1/2},`$ (12)
$`\xi [\frac{5\pi }{8},\frac{3\pi }{8}]:\mathrm{\Delta }=1.17y^3+1.97y^2+2.12y8.22,y=\pi /2+\xi ,`$ (13)
$`\xi [\pi ,\frac{5\pi }{8}]:\mathrm{\Delta }=0.25z^2+0.28z9.11,z=(\pi +\xi )^2\mathrm{exp}[1/(\pi +\xi )^2].`$ (14)
These parametrizations deviate from the numerical results by less than 0.013. The discontinuity at $`\xi =\frac{3\pi }{8}`$ and $`\xi =\frac{5\pi }{8}`$ is less than 0.016. Using Eq. (10) and the parametrizations (12-14), the full spectrum of Efimov states can be calculated as a function of $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. Eq. (10) can also be used as an operational definition of the three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, which was originally defined in the framework of effective field theory BHK99 . If the binding energy $`B_3`$ of an Efimov state is known either from experiment or by solving the three-body Schrödinger equation, we can determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ by demanding that $`B_3`$ be a solution to Eq. (10) for some integer $`n`$.

A given 2-body potential is characterized by values of $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ and corresponds to a vertical line in Fig. 1. The dashed line shown corresponds to the LM2M2 and TTY potentials for 4He atoms. The intersections of this line with the binding energy curves correspond to the infinitely many Efimov states. The two intersections visible in the figure correspond to the excited state and the ground state of the 4He trimer. The third bound state predicted by Efimov’s equation has a binding energy that is approximately $`515B_3^{(0)}67`$ K. This is much larger than the natural low-energy scale $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$ which is 0.4 K. This state and all the deeper Efimov states are therefore artifacts of the limit $`al`$.

We can use one of the trimer binding energies as the input to determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. It is safer to use the binding energy $`B_3^{(1)}`$ of the excited state, because it is least affected by the high-energy effects that cut off the Efimov spectrum. The most accurate calculations of $`B_3^{(1)}`$ have been obtained by solving the Faddeev equations in the hyperspherical representation NFJ98 , in configuration space RoY00 , and with hard-core boundary conditions MSSK01 . These methods give results that agree to within 0.6%. The results of Ref. MSSK01  for $`B_3^{(0)}`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ for the HFDHE2, HFD-B, LM2M2, and TTY potentials are given in Table 2.

The results for the binding energy $`B_3^{(0)}`$ of the ground state of the trimer agree well with Diffusion Monte Carlo calculations Lew97  which give $`B_3^{(0)}=(131.0\pm 0.7)`$ mK for the HFD-B potential and $`(125.5\pm 0.6)`$ mK for the TTY potential. Taking the calculated dimer binding energy $`B_2`$ as the two-body input, we determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ by demanding that $`B_3^{(1)}`$ satisfy (10) with $`n=1`$. Solving Eq. (10) with $`n=2`$, we obtain the predictions for $`B_3^{(0)}`$ in column 4 of Table 2. The predictions are only 1-4% higher than the calculated values. If we use the calculated values of $`a`$ as input instead of $`B_2`$, we obtain the predicted values of $`B_3^{(0)}`$ in column 7 of Table 2. These values are larger than the calculated ones by 11-21%. The difference between these predictions and those obtained by using $`B_2`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ as the input gives an indication of the size of effective range corrections. The predictions are labelled LO in Table 2, because they are the universality prediction at “leading order” in $`r_s/a`$.

The numerical values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for the four potentials in the Table 2 are nearly the same. If we use $`a_B`$ and $`B_3^{(0)}`$ as the input, we obtain $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=0.0107`$ Å-1 for the LM2M2 and TTY potentials. The values for the other two potentials differ by less than 3%. If we use $`a`$ and $`B_3^{(0)}`$ as the input, we obtain $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=0.0115`$ Å-1 for the LM2M2 and TTY potentials. The values for the other two potentials differ by less than 5%. The small differences between the values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for these potentials illustrates the fact that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ tends to be insensitive to the parameter in the potential that is tuned to make the scattering length large.

The availability of accurate calculations of $`B_3^{(0)}`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ for various older 4He potentials can be used to demonstrate the nontrivial nature of universality in the three-body sector. Different potentials that give a large two-body scattering length should correspond to different values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. The scaling variables $`B_3^{(0)}/B_2`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}/B_2`$ are functions of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ only. If we eliminate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, we obtain a prediction for $`B_3^{(1)}/B_2`$ as a universal function of $`B_3^{(0)}/B_2`$. A closely related scaling function that expresses $`B_3^{(1)}/B_3^{(0)}`$ as a function of $`B_2/B_3^{(0)}`$ has been calculated by Frederico, Tomio, Delfino, and Amorim using the renormalized zero-range model FTD99 ; DFT00 . We have reproduced their scaling function using the solution to Efimov’s equation (10). In Fig. 2, our calculation of the universal scaling function relating $`B_3^{(1)}/B_2`$ to $`B_3^{(0)}/B_2`$ is shown as a solid line. As $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ increases, one moves along the solid line to the right. The data points in Fig. 2 are the results from calculations with various 4He potentials.

The filled symbols show the results from Motovilov et al. MSSK01  which we used to determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for each potential, while the open symbols display the results from various other calculations NFJ98 ; RoY00 ; ELG96 ; CoG86 ; Gon99 . The results for the LM2M2/TTY, HFDHE2, and HFD-B potentials are displayed by the circles, squares, and diamonds, respectively. The open triangles show results from Ref. RoY00  for four other potentials.

The points fall very close to the universal scaling curve, with the exception of the result of Ref. Gon99  for the LM2M2 potential, which lies well below. In that paper, the overall strength of the potential was varied such that $`B_2`$ passed through zero. The results failed to exhibit the Efimov effect of an accumulation of three-body bound states at threshold as $`B_2\mathrm{}`$. The numerical accuracy of this calculation has been questioned in Ref. ELG01 . All the remaining results fall along the universal scaling curve. This demonstrates that the dominant effect of the different potentials on the trimer binding energies can be described by a single parameter which we can identify with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$.

It is interesting to note that calculations using only the lowest adiabatic hyperspherical potential ELG96  or the lowest orbital angular momentum wave function give results that already lie near the scaling curve. Including additional adiabatic potentials or higher orbital angular momenta $`L`$ moves the point to the right along the scaling curve until convergence is reached. This trend is most evident in the calculation of Ref. MSSK01  where the partial results for $`L_{max}=0,2`$ can be compared with the fully converged result with $`L_{max}=4`$ (see Table 2 and 3 in Ref. MSSK01 ).

Note that the most accurate points in Fig. 2 all lie systematically above the scaling curve by approximately the same amount. One can interpret this deviation as being due to effective range effects. These effects are included in potential models, but the effective range is set to zero in the renormalized zero range model and in the effective field theory that were used to calculate the scaling curve. It should be possible to account for these differences quantitatively by taking into account effective range corrections Efi91 ; HaM01 . Since $`r_s/a0.07`$, we expect that including the effective range corrections as a first order perturbation would shift the scaling curve by a small amount, bringing it into better agreement with the calculated points.

We can take into account the effective range corrections to $`B_3^{(0)}`$ approximately if we assume that the deviation $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_3^{(0)}`$ of the leading order universality prediction from the calculated value comes almost entirely from a correction linear in $`r_s`$. The calculated result for one potential can then be used to estimate the effective range corrections for the others. Choosing $`B_3^{(0)}`$ for the HFD-B potential as the input and denoting the deviations of $`B_3^{(0)}`$ from the leading order universality predictions by $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_3^{(0)}`$, we can estimate the effective range corrections for any other potential by

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }B_3^{(0)}}{B_2}\right)_{\mathrm{pot}}=\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }B_3^{(0)}}{B_2}\right)_{\mathrm{HFD}\mathrm{B}}\frac{(r_s/a_B)_{\mathrm{pot}}}{(r_s/a_B)_{\mathrm{HFD}\mathrm{B}}}.$$
(15)
Since the various 4He potentials have similar values of $`r_s`$, the shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_3^{(0)}`$ is almost the same for all the potentials. The resulting predictions for $`B_3^{(0)}`$ are shown in column 5 of Table 2. The corresponding prediction using $`a`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ as the input are shown in column 8. The predictions are labelled NLO in Table 2, because they are approximate universality predictions at “next-to-leading order” in $`r_s/a`$. For each of the HFDHE2, LM2M2, and TTY potentials, the two NLO predictions differ by less than 3%. They also differ from the calculated results in column 1 by less than 3%.

We can use the results in Table 2 to give universality predictions for $`B_3^{(0)}`$ for potentials other than HFD-B both at leading order (LO) and next-to-leading order (NLO) in the effective range. As our best estimate, we take the average of the two predictions obtained by using $`B_2`$ and $`a`$ as the two-body input. We take the difference to be an estimate of the theoretical error. The universality predictions for the TTY potential are

$`\text{LO}:`$ $`B_3^{(0)}=138\pm 17\text{ mK}\text{(TTY)},`$
$`\text{NLO}:`$ $`B_3^{(0)}=127\pm 2\text{ mK}\text{ (TTY)}.`$ (16)
The calculated value in column 1 of Table 2 lies within the error bar for both predictions. Note that including effective range corrections decreases the size of the error bar by an order of magnitude.

The identification of the excited state of the 4He trimer as an Efimov state is well established LDD77 ; NFJ98 ; MSSK01 ; RoY00 ; ELG96 ; BHK99 ; BHK02 ; FTD99 . We now discuss the question of whether the ground state of the 4He trimer should be identified as an Efimov state. The good agreement between the universality prediction for $`B_3^{(0)}`$ and the calculated value could be fortuitous. Some authors have used as the criterion for an Efimov state that a sufficiently large increase in the strength of the two-body potential should make it unstable to decay into an atom and a dimer. Increasing the strength of the two-body potential decreases the scattering length. This tends to move the vertical dashed line in Fig. 1 to the right. A sufficiently large shift in the vertical line will move it beyond the point where that branch of Efimov states terminates on the line corresponding to the dimer binding energy. According to this criterion, the excited state of the trimer is an Efimov state but the ground state is not. However, we argue that the criterion for an Efimov state should not be based on how its binding energy behaves under a large deformation of the strength of the two-body potential, but on how it behaves under arbitrary small deformations of the potential. If it is an Efimov state, any small deformation of the two-body potential will move its binding energy along the universal scaling curve in Fig. 2. The various model potentials for 4He can be interpreted as deformations of the “true” 4He potential.111The short-range part of the “true” potential can be defined by the leading order Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Corrections to this approximation are suppressed by $`m_e/m`$, where $`m_e`$ is the electron mass. The fact that the binding energies for these potentials lie along the universal curve is convincing evidence that the ground state of the 4He trimer is an Efimov state.

If the true binding energy $`B_3^{(1)}`$ of the excited 4He trimer was measured and found to disagree with the calculated value using modern potentials, it would indicate that those potentials are not sufficiently accurate to predict low-energy three-body observables. Using the universality approach, there would be no need to improve the potential in order to predict these observables. We could simply take the measured value of $`B_3^{(1)}`$ as the input required to determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. If we did choose to improve the potential, universality implies that to get predictions for low-energy three-body observables with errors of order $`r_s/a`$, it would be sufficient to introduce a two-parameter deformation of the short-distance part of the potential and tune both parameters simultaneously so that the potential gives the correct values for $`B_2`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$. Alternatively, we could leave the two-body potential unchanged, but instead introduce an artificial short-range three-body potential and tune its strength in order to get the correct value for $`B_3^{(1)}`$. This is essentially what is done in the effective field theory approach; the parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ is varied by adjusting the strength of a three-body contact interaction BHK99 . In the case of 4He atoms, the “true” three-body potential decreases the binding energy $`B_3^{(0)}`$ of the ground state trimer by about 0.3 mK Lew97 . Its effect on $`B_3^{(1)}`$ should be much smaller, because the excited state is much larger in size. Thus the effects of the “true” three-body potential on low-energy three-body observables should be very small. However, universality implies that the dominant effect on low-energy three-body observables from a deformation of the two-body potential that leaves the scattering length fixed is equivalent to the effect of adding a three-body potential.

## IV Atom-Dimer Scattering

The differential cross section for the elastic scattering of an atom and a dimer with wave numbers $`k`$ in the center-of-mass frame has the form

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\left|\underset{L=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{2L+1}{k\mathrm{cot}\delta _L(k)ik}P_L(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\right|^2,$$
(17)
where $`\delta _L(k)`$ is the phase shift for the $`L^{\mathrm{th}}`$ partial wave. These phase shifts are real-valued below the dimer breakup threshold at $`k=(4mB_2/3\mathrm{}^2)^{1/2}`$. Above that threshold, they become complex-valued because of the inelasticity from scattering into three-atom final states.

If the two-body scattering length is large, the cross section for low energies $`E<\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$ has a universal form. For $`L1`$, the phase shifts $`\delta _L(k)`$ are universal functions of $`ka`$ only. To the best of our knowledge, they have not been calculated. The $`L=0`$ phase shift $`\delta _0(k)`$ is also universal, but it depends on $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ as well as on $`ka`$. The general structure of the dependence on $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ was deduced by Efimov Efi71 . For $`k`$ below the breakup threshold, $`ka\mathrm{cot}\delta _0`$ can be written as

$$ka\mathrm{cot}\delta _0=c_1(ka)+c_2(ka)\mathrm{cot}[s_0\mathrm{ln}(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{})+\varphi (ka)],0ka\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}},$$
(18)
where $`c_1(ka)`$, $`c_2(ka)`$, and $`\varphi (ka)`$ are unknown universal functions that satisfy the constraints $`c_1(2/\sqrt{3})=0`$ and $`c_2(2/\sqrt{3})=2/\sqrt{3}`$ review . Using the effective field theory of Ref. BHK99 , we have calculated these functions. The results can be parametrized as follows:

$`c_1(ka)`$ $`=`$ $`0.22+0.39k^2a^20.17k^4a^4,`$
$`c_2(ka)`$ $`=`$ $`0.32+0.82k^2a^20.14k^4a^4,`$
$`\varphi (ka)`$ $`=`$ $`2.640.83k^2a^2+0.23k^4a^4.`$ (19)
The atom-dimer scattering length $`a_{12}`$ and effective range $`r_{s,12}`$ are defined by the low-energy limit of the S-wave phase shift by an equation analogous to (2). From Eqs. (18, 19), we obtain after the use of trigonometric identities

$`a_{12}`$ $`=`$ $`a\left(1.462.15\mathrm{tan}[s_0\mathrm{ln}(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{})+0.09]\right),`$ (20)
$`r_{s,12}`$ $`=`$ $`a\left(1.301.64\mathrm{tan}[s_0\mathrm{ln}(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{})+1.07]+0.53\mathrm{tan}^2[s_0\mathrm{ln}(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{})+1.07]\right).`$ (21)
The atom-dimer scattering lengths $`a_{12}`$ for the HFD-B, LM2M2, and TTY potentials were calculated in Ref. MSSK01 , and the results are given in column 1 of Table 3. Using the values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ determined in the previous section, we can predict the atom-dimer scattering length and compare with the calculated values. The leading order universality predictions for $`a_{12}`$ and $`r_{s,12}`$ are given in columns 3, 5, 7, and 9 of Table 3.

If $`B_2`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ are used as inputs, the predictions for $`a_{12}`$ are smaller than the calculated values by about 13%. If $`a`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ are used as inputs, the predictions are smaller than the calculated values by about 28%. Note that the predictions for $`r_{s,12}`$ differ by as much as a factor of five depending on whether $`B_2`$ or $`a`$ is used as the two-body input. In Fig 3, we show the atom-dimer scattering parameters $`a_{12}`$ and $`r_{s,12}`$ as functions of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$.

The values of $`a_B\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ and $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for the TTY potential are indicated by the vertical dashed and dot-dashed lines, respectively. Note that $`r_{s,12}`$ is positive definite. It achieves a minimum value that is very close to zero near $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=0.94`$ and diverges at $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=1.64`$. The extracted values of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for 4He are fortuitously in the interval between the minimum and the divergence where the effective range changes rapidly with $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. This leads to a large difference in the values of $`r_{s,12}`$ obtained from using $`a`$ or $`B_2`$ as the two-body input.

In Fig. 4, we show the S-wave scattering phase shift $`\delta _0(k)`$ for the TTY potential as a function of the center-of-mass energy $`E_{cm}`$ shifted by the dimer binding energy so that the scattering threshold is at zero energy,

$$E_{cm}+B_2=\frac{3\mathrm{}^2k^2}{4m},$$
(22)
where $`k`$ is the wave number of the atom or the dimer. This shifted energy variable has the advantage that the position of the scattering threshold is independent of whether $`B_2`$ or $`a`$ is taken as the two-body input.

The solid and dashed lines show the universality prediction with $`B_2`$ and $`a`$ as the two-body input, respectively. The vertical dashed and dot-dashed lines indicate the dimer breakup threshold for $`B_2`$ and $`a`$ as the two-body input, respectively. The filled circles show the results of Ref. MSSK01 , which were obtained by solving the Faddeev equation with hard-core boundary conditions. The results are in good agreement with the error band defined by the solid and dashed curves.

Universality implies that the scaling variable $`a_{12}/a_B`$ is a universal function of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. By eliminating $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, we can express $`B_3^{(n)}/B_2`$ as a universal function of $`a_{12}/a_B`$. The various 4He potentials should all give binding energies and scattering lengths that lie along this curve. In nuclear physics, a similar correlation has been observed between the spin-doublet neutron-deuteron scattering length $`a_{12}`$ and the binding energy of the triton $`B_3`$. Calculations of $`B_3`$ and $`a_{12}`$ using various potential models for the nucleon-nucleon interaction give results that cluster along a line in the $`a_{12}`$-$`B_3`$ plane called the Phillips line Phi68 . The observed values of $`B_3`$ and $`a_{12}`$ also lie on that line. Modern nucleon-nucleon potentials predict a value for $`B_3`$ that is about 5-10% below the measured value. Accurate values for both $`a_{12}`$ and $`B_3`$ are obtained by adding a short-range three-body potential and adjusting one parameter to reproduce the measured triton binding energy. The Phillips line in nuclear physics arises from the large S-wave scattering length in both the spin-triplet ($`r_s/a1/3`$) and spin-singlet ($`r_s/|a|1/8`$) nucleon-nucleon channels Efi88 ; BHK00 . In the case of 4He, there are two Phillips lines: one for the 4He trimer ground state and one for the excited state. These Phillips lines are shown in Figs. 5(a) and 5(b), respectively.

The solid line is the universality prediction from Eqs. (10) and (20). As $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ increases, one moves along the solid line to the left. The data points show the results of Ref. MSSK01  for the LM2M2/TTY (circles) and HFD-B potentials (diamonds). They lie close to the Phillips lines as expected from universality. For both potentials, the points lie slightly above the scaling curves, consistent with small effective range corrections.

We can use the calculated result for $`a_{12}`$ for the HFD-B potential from Ref. MSSK01  to estimate the effective range corrections for the other potentials. Denoting the deviation of $`a_{12}`$ from the universality prediction by $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_{12}`$, we can estimate the effective range correction by

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }a_{12}}{a_B}\right)_{\mathrm{pot}}=\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }a_{12}}{a_B}\right)_{\mathrm{TTY}}\frac{(r_s/a_B)_{\mathrm{pot}}}{(r_s/a_B)_{\mathrm{TTY}}}.$$
(23)
The resulting predictions for $`a_{12}`$ are shown in column 4 of Table 3. The corresponding predictions using $`a`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ as the input are shown in column 8. The two NLO predictions agree to within 2%. For the LM2M2 and TTY potentials, they agree with the calculated results in column 1 to within the error bars.

We can use the results in Table 3 to give universality predictions for potentials other than HFD-B for $`a_{12}`$ both at leading order and next-to-leading order in the effective range. As the prediction and the theoretical error in $`a_{12}`$, we take the average and the difference of the predictions obtained by using $`B_2`$ and $`a`$ as the two-body input. The universality predictions for the TTY potential are

$`\text{LO}:`$ $`a_{12}=(104\pm 21)\text{ Å}\text{(TTY)},`$
$`\text{NLO}:`$ $`a_{12}=(129\pm 5)\text{ Å}\text{ (TTY)}.`$ (24)
The LO and NLO predictions for the TTY potential both agree to within errors with the calculated value in Table 3. Including the effective range corrections decreases the error by about an order of magnitude. The error in the NLO prediction in (24) is dominated by the error in the calculated value for the HFD-B potential. There is no accurate calculation for $`r_{s,12}`$ for any of the 4He potentials. Thus we can only give a leading order universality prediction for $`r_{s,12}`$. Because $`r_{s,12}`$ is positive definite and because it is so sensitive to the precise value of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, we take the universality prediction for $`r_{s,12}`$ to be the geometric mean of the predictions obtained by using either $`B_2`$ or $`a`$ as input. We take the theoretical uncertainty to be a multiplicative factor equal to the ratio of the two predictions. The resulting leading order universality prediction for the TTY potential is then

$$\text{LO}:r_{s,12}=(32_{25}^{+121})\text{ Å}\text{(TTY)}.$$
(25)
In spite of the large error bars, we can predict with confidence that $`r_{s,12}`$ is positive, because the expression (21) is positive definite.

## V Three-Body Recombination

Three-body recombination is the process in which two of the three incoming atoms form a dimer and the third atom recoils to balance energy and momentum. The rate of three-body recombination events per unit time and unit volume in a gas of cold atoms is proportional to the third power of the number density FRS96 : $`\nu =\alpha n^3`$. The recombination rate constant $`\alpha `$ is a complicated function of the momenta of the three incoming atoms. At threshold, all three momenta vanish and $`\alpha `$ reduces to a number. The total three-body recombination rate is the sum of the rates for all the dimers.

If the scattering length $`a`$ is large and positive, there is a shallow dimer with $`B_2=\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$. The rate constant $`\alpha `$ for recombination into the shallow dimer at threshold must be a universal function of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. It was calculated in Ref. BBH00  using the effective field theory of Ref. BHK99 . The result can be parametrized as

$$\alpha =67.1\mathrm{sin}^2[s_0\mathrm{ln}(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{})+0.19]\frac{\mathrm{}a^4}{m}.$$
(26)
This remarkable oscillatory dependence on $`\mathrm{ln}(a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{})`$ was previously observed in calculations using the hidden crossing theory NiM99  and the adiabatic hyperspherical representation EGB99 . In the hyperspherical representation, the oscillatory behavior arises from interference between two pathways from the incoming channel on the 2nd adiabatic potential to the outgoing channel on the 1st adiabatic potential. Effective field theory allows the argument of the $`\mathrm{sin}^2`$ to be determined in terms of the same three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ that enters atom-dimer scattering and the trimer binding energies.

Using the values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ determined in Section III, we can predict the three-body recombination constant $`\alpha `$ from Eq. (26).

Our predictions for $`\alpha `$ for four 4He potentials are given in Table 4. The predictions vary by more than a factor of 2 depending on whether we take $`B_2`$ or $`a`$ as the 2-body input. This large difference arises because the value of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for 4He atoms is fortuitously close to the value near $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=0.83`$ at which the sin2 factor in (26) vanishes. This is illustrated in Fig. 6, where $`\alpha `$ in units of $`\mathrm{}a^4/m`$ is plotted as a function of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$.

The vertical dashed and dot-dashed lines indicate the values of $`a_B\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ and $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for the TTY potential, respectively. If we use $`a`$ as input instead of $`B_2`$, the sin2 factor is larger by a factor of two. Because $`\alpha `$ is positive definite and because it is so sensitive to the precise value of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, we take the universality prediction to be the geometric mean of the predictions obtained by using either $`B_2`$ or $`a`$ as the input. We take the theoretical uncertainty to be a multiplicative factor equal to the ratio of the two predictions. The resulting leading order universality prediction for the TTY potential is

$$\text{LO}:\alpha =\left(0.7_{0.4}^{+1.2}\right)\times 10^{27}\mathrm{cm}^6/\mathrm{s}\text{(TTY)}.$$
(27)
There have been several previous calculations of the 3-body recombination rate at threshold for 4He. Fedichev, Reynolds, and Shlyapnikov FRS96  calculated the rate by making a semi-analytic approximation to the Faddeev equations in the hyperspherical representation. In the limit of large scattering length, they obtained a result that depends on $`a`$ only: $`\alpha =3.9\mathrm{}a^4/m`$. They did not observe the oscillatory dependence of $`\alpha `$ on $`\mathrm{ln}(a)`$ predicted by Efimov theory, so there must have been an error in their analysis. They found that solving the Faddeev equations numerically for the TTY potential for 4He gave corrections of about 10%. Inserting the value of $`a`$ for the TTY potential into their analytic result, we obtain a prediction $`\alpha =0.6\times 10^{27}`$ cm6/s that agrees with the universality prediction in (27). This agreement is probably fortuitous.

Nielsen and Macek NiM99  calculated the 3-body recombination rate at threshold by applying hidden crossing theory to the Faddeev equations in the hyperspherical representation. They found that in the limit of large scattering length, $`\alpha `$ could take any value between 0 and $`68\mathrm{}a^4/m`$ depending on some WKB phase. This is consistent with the effective field theory result in (26). For a Gaussian potential that gives the same scattering length and effective range as the LM2M2 potential, they obtained the prediction $`\alpha =1.1\times 10^{27}`$ cm6/s. They pointed out that the result is extremely sensitive to their WKB phase because it is close to the value for which $`\alpha `$ vanishes.

Esry, Greene, and Burke EGB99  calculated the 3-body recombination rate at threshold by solving the Schrödinger equation in hyperspherical coordinates numerically for many potentials with one or at most a few two-body bound states.222The values of $`K_3=6\alpha `$ given in the “Present” column of Table I in Ref. EGB99  must be divided by 6 in order to correct for a factor of 6 error in Eq. (1) of that paper. In the case $`a>0`$, they found that the recombination rates could be well approximated by an empirical formula that reduces in the large $`a`$ limit to an expression with an oscillatory dependence on $`\mathrm{ln}a`$ similar to Eq. (26). In the case of 4He, their result for the HFD-B3-FCI1 potential AJM95  is $`\alpha =0.12\times 10^{27}`$ cm6/s. A new calculation in the hyperspherical adiabatic representation that also uses the HFD-B3-FCI1 potential has recently been carried out SEG02 . This calculation includes states with angular momentum $`J>0`$, so that nonzero energies can be considered. At threshold, it agrees with the result of Ref. EGB99 .

The large uncertainty in the universality prediction for $`\alpha `$ arises because the value of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for the 4He potentials lies fortuitously close to the zero of Eq. (26). In order to improve on the universality prediction (26) within the effective field theory approach, it would be necessary to include effective range corrections. If there was an accurate calculation of $`\alpha `$ for a potential for which $`B_3^{(1)}`$ (or another low-energy three-body observable) is known, we could use that result to estimate the effective range corrections for other potentials. The only calculation of $`\alpha `$ we consider accurate enough is for the HFD-B3-FCI1 potential in Ref. SEG02 . Unfortunately, we are not aware of any calculation of $`B_3^{(1)}`$ for that potential.

## VI Summary and Outlook

The universality approach to the three-body problem with large scattering length was pioneered by Efimov Efi71 , who emphasized the qualitative insights it provides. This approach implies a correlation between all the low-energy three-body observables for potentials that have a large scattering length. The universality approach is also useful as a quantitative tool. It implies that up to corrections suppressed by $`l/a`$, all low-energy three-body observables are determined by $`a`$ and a single three-body parameter. A convenient choice for the three-body parameter is the parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ introduced in Ref. BHK99 , because the dependence of some observables on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ is known analytically.

In order to determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, one three-body observable is required as input. A convenient choice is the binding energy of the shallowest Efimov state. Once $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ is determined, all other low-energy three-body observables can be predicted. We used calculations of the binding energy $`B_3^{(1)}`$ of the excited state of the trimer to determine $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ for various 4He potentials. We then used universality to calculate the binding energy $`B_3^{(0)}`$ of the ground state of the trimer, the atom-dimer phase shifts below the dimer breakup threshold, and the three-body recombination constant at threshold $`\alpha `$. We gave explicit expressions for the three-body recombination constant $`\alpha `$ in Eq. (26) and for the S-wave atom-dimer phase shifts below the breakup threshold in Eq. (18). We also gave an explicit parametrization for the universal function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\xi )`$ that appears in Efimov’s equation (10) for the trimer binding energies.

The leading corrections to the universality predictions come from effective range corrections. If these corrections are included, there should be a systematic improvement in the accuracy of the predictions for all low-energy observables with errors decreasing to second order in $`l/a`$. The effective range corrections have not yet been calculated for the case of three identical spinless bosons with large scattering length. We therefore used accurate calculations of $`B_3^{(0)}`$ and $`a_{12}`$ for the HFD-B potential as input to deduce the approximate effective range corrections in these observables for the other potentials. The resulting theoretical errors are smaller than those for the leading-order universality prediction by about an order of magnitude as expected. Comparing with the calculated values of $`B_3^{(0)}`$ and $`a_{12}`$, we see that the theoretical errors correctly reflect the accuracy of the LO and NLO universality predictions. An actual calculation of the effective range corrections for the three-body observables would eliminate the need for using calculations of three-body observables for one potential as additional inputs.

The leading-order universality predictions presented in this paper were obtained using the effective field theory of Ref. BHK99 , which is a particularly convenient implementation of the universality approach for three-body systems. More generally, effective field theory provides a framework for the model independent description of low-energy phenomena by exploiting a separation of scales in the system EFT . Using renormalization, all short-distance effects are systematically absorbed into a few low-energy parameters such as the scattering length $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. As a consequence, the dependence on the relevant low-energy parameters is explicit, while irrelevant details of how their numerical values arise from complicated short-distance dynamics are omitted. Effective field theory allows for systematically improvable calculations of low-energy observables with well-defined error estimates. This method has many applications ranging from particle physics over nuclear physics to condensed matter physics particleEFT ; nucEFT ; condEFT .

An important open question is how universality is manifested in the four-body problem. Low-energy four-body observables must depend on the two-body parameter $`a`$ and the three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. Are any new four-body parameters required to calculate low-energy four-body observables up to corrections suppressed by $`l/|a|`$? There are theoretical arguments in support of both answers to this question. There is a renormalization argument for zero-range $`\delta `$-function two-body potentials that indicates that a new four-body parameter is required to calculate four-body binding energies AFG95 . On the other hand, a power counting argument within the effective field theory framework suggests that a four-body parameter should not be necessary to calculate four-body observables to leading order in $`l/|a|`$ Lepage . This raises the exciting possibility of calculating the binding energy of the 4He tetramers close to the four-atom threshold to about 10% accuracy using $`a`$ and $`B_3^{(1)}`$ (or another low-energy three-body observable) as the only inputs. There is some circumstantial evidence in favor of this possibility from the four-body problem in nuclear physics. There is a correlation called the “Tjon line” between the binding energy $`B_3`$ of the triton (3H nucleus) and the binding energy $`B_4`$ of the alpha particle (4He nucleus) Tjo75 . Calculations of these binding energies using modern nucleon-nucleon interaction potentials give results that underestimate both binding energies but cluster along a line in the $`B_3`$-$`B_4`$ plane. By adding a three-body potential whose strength is adjusted to get the correct value for $`B_3`$, one also gets an accurate result for $`B_4`$ (see Ref. NKG00  for some recent calculations with modern nuclear forces).

The results for 4He presented in the paper apply equally well to other bosonic atoms with large scattering length as long as the effects of deep two-body bound states on low-energy observables are sufficiently small. By definition, a deep bound state has a binding energy of order $`\mathrm{}^2/ml^2`$ or larger. If $`a<0`$, any dimer is deeply bound. If $`a>0`$, any dimer other than the shallow dimer with $`B_2\mathrm{}^2/ma^2`$ is deeply bound. One qualitative effect of the deep two-body states is that the Efimov states become resonances, because they can decay into an atom and a deeply bound dimer. Deep two-body bound states also provide additional channels for three-body recombination. Their effects can be particularly dramatic for $`a<0`$ if there is an Efimov state near the three-atom threshold, because it gives a resonant enhancement of the three-body recombination rate into deep two-body bound states EGB99 ; BrH01 . The existence of deep two-body bound states does not affect the universality prediction for low-energy observables in the two-body sector. However in the three-body sector, it implies that a third parameter in addition to $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ is required to predict low-energy observables up to corrections suppressed by $`l/|a|`$ BrH01 . This parameter takes into account the cumulative effects of all the deep two-body bound states. The modification of Efimov’s equation for the binding energies was given in Ref. BHK02 .

The universality approach discussed in this paper is not limited to identical bosons. It can be applied to any three-particle system for which at least two of the three pairs have a large scattering length. Some examples are given in a recent review article Nie01 . The universality predictions will depend on the three pair-wise scattering lengths, the ratios of the masses, and the three-body parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$.

An especially promising application of the universality approach is to cold atoms in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance, where the effective scattering length can be controlled by an external magnetic field Festh . This creates the exciting possibility of testing the unique oscillatory dependence of low-energy three-body observables on the scattering length that is predicted by universality. In this paper, we have exploited the fact that the various 4He potentials span a small interval of $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$. Using a Feshbach resonance to control the scattering length, it might be possible to scan through an entire cycle of the oscillatory behavior. Among the dramatic effects that one may be able to observe are the divergence in $`a_{12}`$ near $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=4.3`$ and the zero of $`\alpha `$ near $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}=0.83`$.

The behavior of cold atoms near a Feshbach resonance is in general a complicated coupled-channel problem involving the various hyperfine states of the atoms. However, from the point of view of universality, the coupled-channel effects introduce no additional complications. If one is sufficiently close to the resonance and if the energy relative to the threshold for one hyperfine state is small compared to the hyperfine splittings, only that hyperfine state needs to be included explicitly. The coupled-channel effects can be taken into account through the values of the low-energy parameters $`a`$, which diverges at the resonance, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, which varies slowly in the neighborhood of the resonance.

The behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms with large scattering lengths has been studied experimentally by using Feshbach resonances to tune the scattering lengths of alkali atoms Fesex . In the low-density limit $`na^31`$, the nontrivial aspects of universality in the three-body sector are reflected in a small oscillatory dependence of the energy density of the condensate on $`\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}n^{1/3})`$ BHM02 . There is a possibility that these three-body effects would allow the existence of stable homogeneous condensates with large negative scattering length Bul99 . The intermediate density region where $`na^31`$ but $`nl^31`$ is a more difficult problem. It is an open question whether a condensate in this region has universal properties that are determined by constants such as $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$ that describe the low-energy properties in the few-body sectors. If there are, it may be possible to use universality to predict in detail the behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms near a Feshbach resonance.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank D. Blume, B.D. Esry, and C.H. Greene for useful correspondence. This research was supported by DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-91-ER4069 and NSF Grant No. PHY-0098645.