SciPost Submission Page
Role of impurity statistics and medium constraints in polaron-polaron interactions
by Jesper Levinsen, Francesca Maria Marchetti, Olivier Bleu, Meera M. Parish
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Jesper Levinsen |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.01413v1 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | Dec. 4, 2025, 12:38 a.m. |
| Submitted by: | Jesper Levinsen |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Theoretical |
The author(s) disclose that the following generative AI tools have been used in the preparation of this submission:
Used to add colour to Table 1.
Used to make the ordering of indices in Appendix A and B consistent with the main text.
Abstract
We consider the behavior of a small density of mobile impurities (polarons) immersed in a quantum gas, a generic scenario that can be realized in cold atomic gases, liquid helium mixtures and doped semiconductors. We present a unified theoretical framework for understanding polaron quasiparticles beyond the single-impurity limit, and we identify two key factors that control the polaron-polaron interactions: (i) the statistics of the impurities, including whether or not they are degenerate, and (ii) the constraints on the medium response, i.e., whether the medium density or chemical potential is held fixed. By constructing wave functions for two bosonic, fermionic, or distinguishable impurities immersed in a Bose or Fermi gas, we derive rigorous results for the polaron interactions in the limit of weak impurity-medium coupling. We furthermore obtain an exact relationship between the polaron interactions at fixed medium density and at fixed chemical potential, a result which is valid for arbitrary interaction strength. Our work provides an important guide for understanding experiments, and it acts as a starting point for future strong-coupling theories of polaron interactions that capture all of the effects identified in this work.
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