Taking into account the deformation of the Fermi surface, we investigate the spin-singlet and -triplet BCS pairings in a mixture of fermionic polar molecules with two different hyperfine states. In particular, we explore the relation between the critical temperatures and the Fock-exchange interaction. We also show that, by tuning short-range interaction between interspecies molecules, the singlet- and triplet-paired superfluids may coexist.
Taking into account the deformation of the Fermi surface, we investigate the spin-singlet and -triplet BCS pairings in a mixture of fermionic polar molecules with two different hyperfine states. In particular, we explore the relation between the critical temperatures and the Fock-exchange interaction. We also show that, by tuning short-range interaction between interspecies molecules, the singlet- and triplet-paired superfluids may coexist.
We study the superfluid pairing in a two-species gas of heteronuclear fermionic molecules with equal density. The interplay of the isotropic s-wave interaction and anisotropic long-range dipolar interaction reveals rich physics. We find that the single-particle momentum distribution has a characteristic ellipsoidal shape that can be reasonably represented by a deformation parameter $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ defined similarly to the normal phase. Interesting momentum-dependent features of the order parameter are identified. We calculate the critical temperatures of both the singlet and triplet superfluids, suggesting a possible pairing symmetry transition by tuning the s-wave or dipolar interaction strength.
We investigate the homogeneous superfluid mixtures of a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid originating from pairing two-species fermionic atoms and superfluidity stemming from condensation of bosonic atoms. By integrating out the freedoms associated with the BCS superfluid, we derive the fermion-mediated interactions between bosons, which is attractive and can be tuned from long range in the BCS region to short range in the region of Bose-Einstein condensation of molecular dimers. By analyzing the Bogoliubov spectrum and the damping rate of bosonic superfluid, we map out the phase diagram spanned by the boson-fermion mass ratio and the boson-fermion coupling strength, which consists of a phase separation region and two phase-mixing regions with and without Landau damping. The three different phases can coexist at a tricritical point, which moves toward a low boson-fermion mass ratio and a high boson-fermion scattering length as the fermion-fermion interaction strength is tuned up on the BCS side.
We map out the detuning-magnetization phase diagram for a magnetized (unequal number of atoms in two pairing hyperfine states) gas of fermionic atoms interacting via an s-wave Feshbach resonance (FR). The phase diagram is dominated by the coexistence of a magnetized normal gas and a singlet-paired superfluid with the latter exhibiting a BCS-Bose Einstein condensate crossover with reduced FR detuning. On the BCS side of strongly overlapping Cooper pairs, a sliver of finite-momentum paired Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov magnetized phase intervenes between the phase-separated and normal states. In contrast, for large negative detuning a uniform, polarized superfluid, that is, a coherent mixture of singlet Bose-Einstein-condensed molecules and fully magnetized single-species Fermi sea, is a stable ground state.
In our recent experiments at MIT, superfluidity has been observed in a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas. These systems constitute a novel form of matter with model character: One can vary the temperature, density and dimensionality, the number of “spin up” versus “spin down” fermions, and, most remarkably, the interactions can be precisely controlled over an enormous range. This allows to study the crossover of a Bose-Einstein condensate of tightly bound molecules to a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluid of long-range Cooper pairs. Superfluidity in this crossover regime is demonstrated by setting the gas under rotation and observing ordered lattices of quantized vortices [1]. Thanks to its strong interactions, the gas is a high-temperature superfluid: Scaled to the density of electrons in a metal, superfluidity would occur already far above room temperature. A new regime is entered when the number of spin up versus spin down atoms is imbalanced. In this case, not every spin up atom can find a spin down partner. The ground state of such a system has been under debate for over 40 years. We observe the breakdown of superfluidity at a critical imbalance, the Chandrasekhar-Clogston limit [2]. The superfluid gives way to an intriguing, strongly-interacting Fermi gas with unequal spin populations [3, 4].
Superconductivity and superfluidity of fermions require, within the BCS theory, matching of the Fermi energies of the two interacting Fermion species. Difference in the number densities of the two species leads either to a normal state, to phase separation, or---potentially---to exotic forms of superfluidity such as Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state, Sarma state, or breached pair state. We consider ultracold Fermi gases with polarization, i.e., spin-density imbalance. We show that, due to the gases being trapped and isolated from the environment in terms of particle exchange, exotic forms of superfluidity appear as a shell around the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid core of the gas and, for large density imbalance, in the core as well. We obtain these results by describing the effect of the trapping potential by using the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. For comparison to experiments, we calculate also the condensate fraction, and show that, in the center of the trap, a polarized superfluid leads to a small dip in the central density difference. We compare the results to those given by local density approximation and find qualitatively different behavior.