Three-Body Interacting Bosons in Free Space

Abstract

We propose a method of controlling two- and three-body interactions in an ultracold Bose gas in any dimension. The method requires us to have two coupled internal single-particle states split in energy such that the upper state is occupied virtually but amply during collisions. By varying system parameters one can switch off the two-body interaction while maintaining a strong three-body one. The mechanism can be implemented for dipolar bosons in the bilayer configuration with tunnelling or in an atomic system by using radio-frequency fields to couple two hyperfine states. One can then aim to observe a purely three-body-interacting gas, dilute self-trapped droplets, the paired superfluid phase, Pfaffian state, and other exotic phenomena.