Resonance superfluidity in a lithium gas: renormalization of resonance scattering theory

Summary form only given. For non-resonant atomic interactions the properties of ultra-cold scattering can be accurately represented by the scattering length. When the interactions are resonant, for instance when the atoms are colliding via a Feshbach resonance, the scattering properties become strongly dependent on energy, and the scattering length approximation is no longer valid. We show that there is a limited set of parameters that fully characterizes the scattering in the ultra-cold regime, and that this description can be easily incorporated into a theory of many-body physics. In effect, it can be shown that with a Hamiltonian where the resonant bound-state is explicitly treated, the resulting many-body mean-field equations have built in the microscopic two-body coupled-channels scattering equations. We have used this many-body theory to derive a theory of resonance superfluidity, and applied it to both fermionic /sup 40/K and /sup 6/Li. Since the scattering length a does not appear as an expansion parameter of the theory it can be shown that this field theory does not break down as a goes to infinity. In fact, the theory describes the high-T/sub c/ behavior of the system and predicts a critical temperature which can be as high as half the Fermi temperature.