Effective dynamics of a tracer particle in a dense homogeneous quantum gas

Abstract

We investigate the mean field regime of the dynamics of a tracer particle in a homogenous quantum gas. For a bosonic gas, we show that this regime is constrained by the well known requirement of an appropriate mean field scaling of the interaction. For fermions, however, we find an important qualitative difference. Not only are fermions much more homogeneously distributed than bosons but also deviations from the mean are due only to fast degrees of freedom in the gas. This observation leads to an explanation of why a tracer particle behaves freely in the dense homogeneous fermion gas despite of a non-scaled interaction, i.e., despite of non-vanishing statistical fluctuations. Finally, we indicate how the gained insight can be rigorously justified.