title: Lifetime of the Bose gas with resonant interactions.
abstract: We study the lifetime of a Bose gas at and around unitarity using a Feshbach resonance in lithium 7. At unitarity, we measure the temperature dependence of the three-body decay coefficient L(3). Our data follow a L(3)=λ(3)/T(2) law with λ(3)=2.5(3)(stat)(6)(syst)×10(-20) (μK)(2) cm(6) s(-1) and are in good agreement with our analytical result based on zero-range theory. Varying the scattering length a at fixed temperature, we investigate the crossover between the finite-temperature unitary region and the previously studied regime where |a| is smaller than the thermal wavelength. We find that L(3) is continuous across the resonance, and over the whole a<0 range our data quantitatively agree with our calculation.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS and UPMC, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Rem
authors.forename: A T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Grier
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ferrier-Barbut
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Eismann
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Langen
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Navon
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Khaykovich
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Werner
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Petrov
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chevy
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Salomon