Abstract

Recent advances in the trapping and cooling of spin-polarized atoms may lead to the observation of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in a weakly interacting system. The formation of the condensate depends on the interaction between trapped atoms, which at low temperatures is described by a single parameter, the s-wave scattering length a. The scattering length is determined entirely by the interaction potential, which in the case of spin-polarized hydrogen or alkali atoms is the ³Σ⁺„(a) potential. Because of the possibility of a zero-energy scattering resonance caused by a state very near the dissociation limit, the scattering length is sensitive to the binding energy of the least-bound state.

© 1995 Optical Society of America