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arXiv:0710.5484 · Physical Review B

Exploring exotic superfluidity of polarized ultracold fermions in optical lattices

Yan Chen, Z. D. Wang, Fu‐Chun Zhang, C. S. Ting

Published Feb 11, 2009• 34 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Superfluidity with imbalanced populations of harmonically trapped ultracold fermions in a two-dimensional optical lattice is investigated by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. The intriguing richness of patterns between competing ferromagnetic and superfluid phases for different filling densities has been revealed. At low density, the main experimental features could be reproduced, especially the bimodal distribution of ferromagnetism. The superfluid-pairing gap oscillates radially, demonstrating the realization of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state. In the high-density regime, another type of FFLO state with gap oscillation along the angular direction shows up and the accompanying ferromagnetic order modulates accordingly. The square lattice like FFLO state may appear at the intermediate densities. Moreover, we suggest other experimental proposals of observing the unique FFLO features straightforwardly.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.79.054512

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Physical Review A•Jun 3, 2009•2 citations
Superfluidity with imbalanced populations of harmonically trapped ultracold fermions in a two-dimensional optical lattice is investigated by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. The intriguing richness of patterns between competing ferromagnetic and superfluid phases for different filling densities has been revealed. At low density, the main experimental features could be reproduced, especially the bimodal distribution of ferromagnetism. The superfluid-pairing gap oscillates radially, demonstrating the realization of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state. In the high-density regime, another type of FFLO state with gap oscillation along the angular direction shows up and the accompanying ferromagnetic order modulates accordingly. The square lattice like FFLO state may appear at the intermediate densities. Moreover, we suggest other experimental proposals of observing the unique FFLO features straightforwardly.
The attractive Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian is solved via the Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism to analyze the ground state phases of population imbalanced two-component fermion mixtures in harmonically trapped optical lattices. In the low density limit, the superfluid order parameter has Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) type oscillations in the radial direction towards the trap edges to accommodate the unpaired fermions that are pushed away from the trap center with a single peak in their density. However, in the high density limit, while the order parameter has oscillations in the radial direction towards the trap center for low imbalances, it also has oscillations towards the trap edges with increasing imbalance until the superfluid to normal phase transition occurs beyond a critical imbalance. This leads to a single peak in the density of unpaired fermions for low and high imbalances, but leads to double peaks for intermediate imbalances.
We review the concepts and the present state of theoretical studies of spin-imbalanced superfluidity, in particular the elusive Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state, in the context of ultracold quantum gases. The comprehensive presentation of the theoretical basis for the FFLO state that we provide is useful also for research on the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in other physical systems. We focus on settings that have been predicted to be favourable for the FFLO state, such as optical lattices in various dimensions and spin-orbit coupled systems. These are also the most likely systems for near-future experimental observation of the FFLO state. Theoretical bounds, such as Bloch's and Luttinger's theorems, and experimentally important limitations, such as finite-size effects and trapping potentials, are considered. In addition, we provide a comprehensive review of the various ideas presented for the observation of the FFLO state. We conclude our review with an analysis of the open questions related to the FFLO state, such as its stability, superfluid density, collective modes and extending the FFLO superfluid concept to new types of lattice systems.
Ultracold atomic gases have emerged as an ideal laboratory system to emulate many-body physics in an unprecedentedly controllable manner. Numerous many-body quantum states and phases have been experimentally explored and characterized using the ultracold atomic gases, offering new insights into many exciting physics ranging from condensed matters to cosmology. In this thesis, we will present a systematic numerical study of a novel experimental system, population imbalanced two-component ultracold Fermi gases. We explore the phase diagram of this system in both 3D and 1D especially focusing on the exotic Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase, which is characterized by a spatially oscillating order parameter. In 3D, we solve for the stationary states of trapped imbalanced Fermi gases in a wide range of parameter space with a home-made parallel eigen-solver for Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations. Our results show that there exists a metastable state with a FFLO type oscillating order parameter. In 1D, we simulate the dynamical expansion of the population imbalanced Fermi gases from the trap. A numerically quasi-exact scheme, time-evolving block decimation (TEBD), is introduced for the comparative studies with the solution of the time-dependent BdG equation. Our results predict that the existence of FFLO states will leave conspicuous signatures in the density profiles during the expansion. For further understanding of the interplay between the population imbalance and two-body pairing interaction between two spin components, we also study the spin transport properties through trapped ultracold Fermi gases. The preliminary results will be discussed.
This is a study of the theory of ultracold atomic Fermi gases, especially in optical lattices, ie. periodic potentials created with laser light. Superfluidity is studied especially in the case of spin population imbalanced Fermi gases and phase diagrams are calculated from mean field theory. The Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase is shown to occupy a larger region of the phase diagram than previously predicted for purely harmonically trapped systems. Methods for detecting the FFLO phase are suggested. As another topic, excitations in a superfluid Fermi gas, their signatures and use in sensor applications are studied. The thesis is divided in chapters in the following way: Chapter 1 is an introduction to the research field of ultracold quantum gases, including references to some of the most important experiments done with the fermionic isotopes. Chapter 2 is an introduction to optical lattices and their major experimental characteristics. Chapter 3 deals with extensions of BCS-theory, mainly the FFLO and the detection of the phases predicted by the extensions. In chapter 4 I discuss excitations in BCS-like states and their applications in sensing electro-magnetic fields. Chapter 5 contains the conclusions.
We theoretically explore a promising route to achieve the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state in a spin-imbalanced ultracold Fermi gas. In the current stage of cold atom physics, search for this exotic Fermi superfluid is facing two serious difficulties: One is the desperate destruction of the FFLO long-range order by FFLO pairing fluctuations, which precludes entering the phase through a second-order transition, even in three dimension. The other is the fierce competition with the phase separation into the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) state and the spin-polarized normal state. By including strong FFLO pairing fluctuations within the framework of the strong-coupling theory developed by Nozi\`eres and Schmitt-Rink, we show that the anisotropy of Fermi surface introduced by an optical lattice makes the FFLO state stable against the paring fluctuations. This stabilized FFLO state is also found to be able to overcome the competition with the phase separation under a certain condition. Since the realization of unconventional Fermi superfluids is one of the most exciting challenges in cold atom physics, our results would contribute to the further development of this field.
We explore in this paper a harmonically trapped asymmetric fermionic superfluid in a two-dimensional optical lattice with pairing interactions between the neighboring sites, by self-consistently solving Bogliubov--de Gennes equations. We find the superfluid generally phase separates into a ddd-wave pairing component and an extended sss-wave pairing one, mixed with the unpaired normal fermions. For sufficient large number asymmetries, the ground state is found to be a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state without fourfold rotational symmetry. Both the ddd-wave and sss-wave order parameters show spatially varying novel patterns with nodal points or nodal lines. These features are expected to be checked by the experiments on the repulsive ultracold fermionic atoms.