Borromean droplet in three-component ultracold Bose gases

Abstract

Borromean ring refers to a peculiar structure where three rings are linked together while any two of them are unlinked. Here we propose the realization of its quantum mechanical analog in a many-body system of three-component ultracold bosons. Namely, we identify the {\it Borromean droplet}, where only the ternary bosons can form a self-bound droplet while any binary subsystems cannot. Its formation is facilitated by an additional attractive force induced by the density fluctuation of a third component, which enlarges the mean-field collapse region in comparison to the binary case and renders the formation of Borromean droplet after incorporating the repulsive force from quantum fluctuations. Outside the Borromean regime, the competition between ternary and binary droplets leads to an interesting phenomenon of droplet phase separation, manifested by double plateaus in the density profile. We further show that the transition between different droplets and gas phase can be conveniently tuned by boson numbers and interaction strengths. The study reveals the possibility of Borromean binding in the many-body world and sheds light on more intriguing many-body bound state formed in multi-component systems.