Paper detail

Universality and the three-body parameter of helium-4 trimers

We consider a system of three helium-4 atoms, which is so far the simplest realistic three-body system exhibiting the Efimov effect, in order to analyse deviations from the universal Efimov three-body spectrum. We first calculate the bound states using a realistic two-body potential, and then analyse how they can be reproduced by simple effective models beyond Efimov's universal theory. We find that the non-universal variations of the first two states can be well reproduced by models parametrized with only three quantities: the scattering length and effective range of the original potential, and the strength of a small three-body force. Furthermore, the three-body parameter which fixes the origin of the infinite set of three-body levels is found to be consistent with recent experimental observations in other atomic species.