Paper detail

Universality of the energy spectrum for two interacting harmonically trapped ultra-cold atoms in one and two dimensions

Motivated by the recent article of P. Shea {\it et al.} [Am. J. Phys. {\bf 77} (6), 2009] we examine the exactly solvable problem of two harmonically trapped ultra-cold bosonic atoms interacting {\it via} a short range potential in one and two dimensions. A straightforward application in one dimension shows that the energy spectrum is universal, provided that the range of the potential is much smaller than the oscillator length, in addition to clearly illustrating why regularization is not required in the limit of zero range. The two dimensional problem is less trivial, requiring a more careful treatment as compared to the one dimensional case. Our two dimensional analysis likewise reveals that the low-energy physics is also universal, in addition to providing a simple method for obtaining the appropriately regularized two dimensional pseudopotential.