Harmonically trapped four-boson system

Four identical spinless bosons with purely attractive two-body short-range interactions and repulsive three-body interactions under external spherically symmetric harmonic confinement are considered. The repulsive three-body potential prevents the formation of deeply bound states with molecular character. The low-energy spectrum with vanishing orbital angular momentum and positive parity for infinitely large two-body s-wave scattering length is analyzed in detail. Using the three-body contact, states are classified as universal, quasiuniversal, or strongly nonuniversal. Connections with the zero-range interaction model are discussed. The energy spectrum is mapped out as a function of the two-body s-wave scattering length as , as > 0. In the weakly to medium-strongly interacting regime, one of the states approaches the energy obtained for a hard-core interaction model. This state is identified as the energetically lowest-lying “BEC state.” Structural properties are also presented.