We study a two-component Bose gas with a symmetric spin-orbit coupling, and find that two atoms can form a bound state with any intra-or inter-species scattering length. Consequently, in the dilute limit, the Bardeen-Cooper-Shrieffer (BCS) pairing state of bosons can be formed with weakly-attractive inter-species and repulsive intra-species interactions. The quasiparticle excitation energies are anisotropic due to spin-orbit coupling. This BCS paring state is energetically favored over Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of atoms at low densities. As the density increases, there is a first-order transition from the BCS to BEC states.

We study the Bardeen-Cooper-Shrieffer (BCS) pairing state of a two-component Bose gas with a symmetric spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In the dilute limit at low temperature, this system is essentially a dilute gas of diatomic molecules. We compute the effective mass of the molecule and find that it is anisotropic in momentum space. The critical temperature of the pairing state is about eight times smaller than the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) transition temperature of an ideal Bose gas with the same density.