Atoms and molecules in a Bose-Einstein condensate with strong interactions

With help of a Feshbach scattering resonance it is possible to change the effective two-body interaction of ultra-cold atoms from repulsive to attractive, from weak to strong. Regular field theory for the description of Bose-Einstein condensates is based on a single interaction parameter only, the scattering length. Such a description, however, is not valid anymore for the resonance regime. We formulated a field-theory that incorporated the microscopic energy-dependent two-body interactions, that also takes pair correlations into account. This theory allowed us to explain an experiment at JILA where Ramsey fringes were observed in a ^85Rb Bose-Einstein condensate by making use of a Feshbach resonance. The theory and experiment show that coherent molecules are created, a first step in the direction of molecular BEC. For non-resonant interactions, the self-energy corresponding to the atom-atom interactions is proportional to the scattering length. Close to resonance, however, this relationship no longer applies, and the energy will level off to a finite value on resonance. We investigate this resonance self-energy, and compare it with experimental results from strongly interacting Fermi systems.