Improved effective-range expansions for small and large values of scattering length

Abstract

The textbook effective-range expansion of scattering theory is useful in the analysis of low-energy scattering phenomenology when the scattering length $|a|$ is much larger than the range $R$ of the scattering potential: $|a|\gg R$. Nevertheless, the same has been used for systems where the scattering length is much smaller than the range of the potential, which could be the case in many scattering problems. We suggest and numerically study improved two-parameter effective-range expansions for the cases $|a| > R$ and $|a| < R$. The improved effective-range expansion for $|a| > R$ reduces to the textbook expansion for $|a|/R \gg 1$.