Universal behavior of the energy of trapped few-boson systems with large scattering length.

We calculate energy levels of two and three bosons trapped in a harmonic oscillator potential with oscillator length a(osc). The atoms are assumed to interact through a short-range potential with a scattering length a, and the short-distance behavior of the three-body wave function is characterized by a parameter theta. For large positive a/a(osc), the energies of states that, in the absence of the trap, correspond to three free atoms approach values independent of a and theta. For other states, the theta dependence of the energy is strong, but the energy is independent of a for |a/a(osc)|>>1.