Symmetry-breaking phase transitions are central to our understanding of states of matter. When a continuous symmetry is spontaneously broken, new excitations appear that are tied to fluctuations of the order parameter. In superconductors and fermionic superfluids, the phase and amplitude can fluctuate independently, giving rise to two distinct collective branches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe resolve the unexpected and long-standing disagreement between experiment and theory in the Efimovian three-body spectrum of ^{7}Li, commonly referred to as the lithium few-body puzzle. Our results show that the discrepancy arises out of the presence of strong nonuniversal three-body spin-exchange interactions, which enact an effective inflation of the universal Efimov spectrum. This conclusion is obtained from a thorough numerical solution of the quantum mechanical three-body problem, including precise interatomic interactions and all spin degrees of freedom for three alkali-metal atoms.
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