Cold Atom Quantum Simulator for Dilute Neutron Matter

The internal structure of neutron stars and the physical properties of nuclei depend on the equation of state (EOS) of neutron matter. Dilute neutron matter is a quantum system of spin-1/2 Fermi particles interacting via s-wave scattering. Although a nuclear system and an ultracold atomic system have length scales and energy scales that differ by several orders of magnitude, both systems follow a common universal EOS considering their non-dimensional universal interaction parameters. In this study, we determine the EOS of neutron matter in the dilute region, where the influence of the s-wave scattering length is dominant but that of the effective range is small, by utilizing a quantum simulator of ultracold $^6$Li atoms with Feshbach resonance.