Natural and unnatural parity states of small trapped equal-mass two-component Fermi gases at unitarity and fourth-order virial coefficient

Abstract

Equal-mass two-component Fermi gases under spherically symmetric external harmonic confinement with large s-wave scattering length are considered. Using the stochastic variational approach, we determine the lowest 286 and 164 relative eigenenergies of the (2,2) and (3,1) systems at unitarity as a function of the range $r_0$ of the underlying two-body potential and extrapolate to the $r_0\to 0$ limit. Our calculations include all states with vanishing and finite angular momentum $L$ (and natural and unnatural parity $\Pi$) with relative energy up to $10.5\hslash \Omega$, where $\Omega$ denotes the angular trapping frequency of the external confinement. Our extrapolated zero-range energies are estimated to have uncertainties of 0.1% or smaller. The (2,2) and (3,1) energies are used to determine the fourth-order virial coefficient of the trapped unitary two-component Fermi gas in the low-temperature regime. Our results are compared with recent predictions for the fourth-order virial coefficient of the homogeneous system. We also calculate small portions of the energy spectra of the (3,2) and (4,1) systems at unitarity.

12 pages, 7 figures