We address the issue of determining an effective two-body interaction for mean-field calculations of energies of many-body systems. We show that the effective interaction is proportional to the phase shift, and demonstrate this result in the quasiclassical approximation when there is a trapping potential in addition to the short-range interaction between a pair of particles. We calculate numerically energy levels for the case of an interaction with a short-range square-well and a harmonic trapping potential and show that the numerical results agree well with the analytical expression. We derive a generalized Gross--Pitaevskii equation which includes effective range corrections and discuss the form of the electron--atom effective interaction to be used in calculations of Rydberg atoms and molecules.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

We study a gas of repulsively interacting bosons in an optical lattice and explore the physics beyond the lowest band Hubbard model. Utilizing a generalized Gutzwiller ansatz, we find how the lowest band physics is modified by the inclusion of the first excited bands. In contrast to the prediction of the lowest band Bose-Hubbard model, a reentrant behavior of superfluidity is envisaged as well as decreasing width of the Mott lobes at strong coupling.

We study the ground state of the rotating spinor condensate and show that for slow rotation the ground state of the ferromagnetic spinor condensate is a coreless vortex. While coreless vortex is not topologically stable, we show that there is an energetic threshold for the creation of a coreless vortex. This threshold corresponds to a critical rotation frequency that vanishes as the system size increases. Also, we demonstrate the dramatically different behavior of the spinor condensate with anti-ferromagnetic interactions. For anti-ferromagnetic spinor condensate the angular momentum as a function of rotation frequency exhibits the familiar discrete staircase behavior, but in contrast to an ordinary condensate the first step is to the state with angular momentum 1/2 per particle. 03.75.Fi, 32.80.Pj,

Bloch oscillations appear for a particle in a weakly tilted periodic potential. The intrinsic spin Hall effect is an outcome of a spin-orbit coupling. We demonstrate that both these phenomena can be realized simultaneously in a gas of weakly interacting ultracold atoms exposed to a tilted optical lattice and to a set of spatially dependent light fields inducing an effective spin-orbit coupling. It is found that both the spin Hall as well as the Bloch oscillation effects may coexist, showing, however, a strong correlation between the two. These correlations are manifested as a transverse spin current oscillating in-phase with the Bloch oscillations. On top of the oscillations originating from the periodicity of the model, a trembling motion is found which is believed to be atomic Zitterbewegung. It is argued that damping of these Zitterbewegung oscillations may to a large extent be prevented in the present setup considering a periodic optical lattice potential.