A toy model for molecular condensates in Bose gases

Abstract

The occurrence of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate is studied for an atomic system near a zero energy resonance of the binary scattering process, with a large and positive scattering length. The interaction potential is modeled by a pseudo-potential having one bound state. Using a variational Gaussian ansatz for the $N$-body density operator, we discuss the thermodynamic properties at low temperature and the relative stability of the system towards the formation of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. We also derive an approximate Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the molecular condensate leading to the prediction of a Bogoliubov spectrum.