Effective single-mode model of a binary boson mixture in the quantum droplet region

In a binary quantum droplet, the interspecies attraction dominates over the intraspecies repulsions and the mean-field energy is unstable. The mechanical stability is restored by the repulsive Lee-Huang-Yang (LHY) droplet, there are two branches of gapless excitations. The lower branch describes the phonon excitation and its energy is imaginary in the long-wavelength limit, implying dynamical instability. Recently, it was found that the phonon energy is renormalized by higher-order quantum fluctuations and the dynamical instability is removed [Q. Gu and L. Yin, Phys. Rev. B 102, 220503(R) (2020)]. In this paper, we study a binary quantum droplet in the path-integral formalism to construct an effective model with the correct phonon energy. By integrating out the upper excitation branch, we obtain an effective single-mode model describing density fluctuations, and derive the extended Gross-Pitaevskii equation (EGPE). In this approach, the LHY energy in the EGPE is purely positive without any assumption of neglecting the imaginary part. This effective single-mode model can be also used outside and close to the quantum droplet region such as in the LHY gas. Based on this effective model, we obtain the phase diagram of a uniform binary Bose system near the mean-field unstable point, which can be tested in experiments.