Stabilization of three-body resonances to bound states in a continuum

Abstract: Three-body resonances are ubiquitous in few-body physics and are characterized by a finite lifetime before decaying into continuum states of their composing subsystems. In this work we present a theoretical study on the possibility to stabilize three-body resonances to so-called bound states in a continuum: resonances with vanishing width that do not decay. Within a simple two-channel approach we unveil the underlying mechanism and suggest that the lifetime can be varied by a continuous tuning of system parameters. The validity of our theory is illustrated in two rather different examples, a mass-imbalanced system in one dimension and a system of three identical bosons in three dimensions, relevant to Efimov physics. Crucially, for the latter we find that one of the tunable parameters to achieve a three-body bound state in a continuum is an external magnetic field, a common tunable variable in cold-atom experiments. Due to the fundamental nature of our theory, it is expected to hold in other few-body systems, possibly opening new avenues for basic studies of otherwise unstable systems, and elevating few-body systems to interesting candidates for quantum technology.