The condensation of a trapped dilute Bose gas with three-body interactions

Abstract

We consider a trapped dilute gas of $N$ bosons in $\mathbb{R}^3$ interacting via a three-body interaction potential of the form $N\, V(N^{1/2}(x-y,x-z))$. In the limit $N\to \infty$, we prove that every approximate ground state of the system is a convex superposition of minimizers of a 3D energy-critical nonlinear Schr\"odinger functional where the nonlinear coupling constant is proportional to the scattering energy of the interaction potential. In particular, the $N$-body ground state exhibits complete Bose--Einstein condensation if the nonlinear Schr\"odinger minimizer is unique up to a complex phase.