Scaling behavior of the momentum distribution of a quantum Coulomb system in a confining potential

Abstract

We calculate the single-particle momentum distribution of a quantum many-particle system in the presence of the Coulomb interaction and a confining potential. The region of intermediate momenta, where the confining potential dominates, marks a crossover from a Gaussian distribution valid at low momenta to a power-law behavior valid at high momenta. We show that for all momenta the momentum distribution can be parametrized by a $q$-Gaussian distribution whose parameters are specified by the confining potential. Furthermore, we find that the functional form of the probability of transitions between the confined ground state and the $n^{th}$ excited state is invariant under scaling of the ratio $Q^2/\nu_n$, where $Q$ is the transferred momentum and $\nu_n$ is the corresponding excitation energy. Using the scaling variable $Q^2/\nu_n$ the maxima of the transition probabilities can also be expressed in terms of a $q$-Gaussian.