© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

Terms Privacy Legal Notice

arXiv:1007.1743 · Physical Review A

Dynamical instability of a spin spiral in an interacting Fermi gas as a probe of the Stoner transition

G. J. Conduit, Ehud Altman

Published Oct 7, 2010• 13 citations

Abstract

We propose an experiment to probe ferromagnetic phenomena in an ultracold Fermi gas, while alleviating the sensitivity to three-body loss and competing many-body instabilities. The system is initialized in a small pitch spin spiral, which becomes unstable in the presence of repulsive interactions. To linear order the exponentially growing collective modes exhibit critical slowing down close to the Stoner transition point. Also, to this order, the dynamics are identical on the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic sides of the transition. However, we show that scattering off the exponentially growing modes qualitatively alters the collective mode structure. The critical slowing down is eliminated and in its place a new unstable branch develops at large wave vectors. Furthermore, long-wavelength instabilities are quenched on the paramagnetic side of the transition. We study the experimental observation of the instabilities, specifically addressing the trapping geometry and how phase-contrast imaging will reveal the emerging domain structure. These probes of the dynamical phenomena could allow experiments to detect the transition point and distinguish between the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic regimes.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.82.043603

Related papers

Competition between Pairing and Ferromagnetic Instabilities in Ultracold Fermi Gases near Feshbach Resonances

David Pekker, Mehrtash Babadi, Rajdeep Sensarma +4 more

We study the quench dynamics of a two-component ultracold Fermi gas from the weak into the strong interaction regime, where the short time dynamics are governed by the exponential growth rate of unstable collective modes. We obtain an effective interaction that takes into account both Pauli blocking and the energy dependence of the scattering amplitude near a Feshbach resonance. Using this interaction we analyze the competing instabilities towards Stoner ferromagnetism and pairing.

arXiv:1005.2366•Physical Review Letters•Feb 1, 2011•141 citations

Non-equilibrium dynamics of interacting Fermi systems in quench experiments

Mehrtash Babadi, David Pekker, Rajdeep Sensarma +2 more

We describe the dynamics of two component non-interacting ultracold Fermions which are initially in thermal equilibrium and undergo a rapid quench to either the repulsive or attractive side of a Feshbach resonance. The short time dynamics is dominated by the exponentially growing collective modes. We study the Stoner instability and formation of ferromagnetic textures on the repulsive side, and the pairing instability towards BCS or FFLO-like states (determined by the population imbalance) on the attractive side. In each case, we evaluate the growth rate of unstable modes and predict the typical lengthscale of textures to be formed.

arXiv:0908.3483•Aug 25, 2009•5 citations

Competing instabilities in quench experiments with ultracold Fermi gases near a Feshbach resonance

David Pekker, Eugene Demler

Measuring the tunability of effective two-body interactions near Feshbach resonances is a powerful, experimental tool in systems of ultracold atoms. It has been used to explore a variety of intriguing phenomena in recent experiments. This chapter applies the method of collective mode instabilities to the concrete example of quenches of the non-interacting Fermi gas to the strongly interacting regime. Section 9.3 begins by discussing the relation between linear response and collective modes. It shows how to compute the pairing and the ferromagnetic responses using the equation of motion formalism. Section 9.4 demonstrates how to describe a Feshbach resonance using a pseudo-potential model. Section 9.5 applies the pseudo-potential model to compute the many-body T-matrix and thus obtain the pairing collective mode. Section 9.6 discusses how to incorporate the many-body T-matrix into the ferromagnetic susceptibility. Section 9.7 summarizes the results for the pairing versus Stoner competition in the context of the MIT experiments. Section 9.8 provides concluding remarks.

arXiv:1107.3930•Oxford University Press eBooks•Nov 15, 2012•1 citation

Stoner ferromagnetism of a strongly interacting Fermi gas in the quasirepulsive regime

Lianyi He, Xia-Ji Liu, Xu-Guang Huang +1 more

Recent advances in rapidly quenched ultracold atomic Fermi gases near a Feshbach resonance have brought about a number of interesting problems in the context of observing the long-sought Stoner ferromagnetic phase transition. The possibility of experimentally obtaining a ``quasirepulsive'' regime in the upper branch of the energy spectrum due to the rapid quench is currently being debated, and the Stoner transition has mainly been investigated theoretically by using perturbation theory or at high polarization due to the limited theoretical approaches in the strongly repulsive regime. In this work, we present a nonperturbative theoretical approach to the quasirepulsive upper branch of a Fermi gas near a broad Feshbach resonance, and we determine the finite-temperature phase diagram for the Stoner instability. Our results agree well with the known quantum Monte Carlo simulations at zero temperature, and we recover the known virial expansion prediction at high temperature for arbitrary interaction strengths. At resonance, we find that the Stoner transition temperature becomes of the order of the Fermi temperature, around which the molecule formation rate becomes vanishingly small. This suggests a feasible way to observe Stoner ferromagnetism in the nondegenerate temperature regime.

arXiv:1412.2412•Physical Review A•Jun 24, 2016•26 citations

Repulsive Atomic Gas in a Harmonic Trap on the Border of Itinerant Ferromagnetism

G. J. Conduit, Benjamin D. Simons

Alongside superfluidity, itinerant (Stoner) ferromagnetism remains one of the most well-characterized phases of correlated Fermi systems. A recent experiment has reported the first evidence for novel phase behavior on the repulsive side of the Feshbach resonance in a two-component ultracold Fermi gas. By adapting recent theoretical studies to the atomic trap geometry, we show that an adiabatic ferromagnetic transition would take place at a weaker interaction strength than is observed in experiment. This discrepancy motivates a simple nonequilibrium theory that takes account of the dynamics of magnetic defects and three-body losses. The formalism developed displays good quantitative agreement with experiment.

arXiv:0907.3725•Physical Review Letters•Nov 12, 2009•51 citations

Density, spin, and pairing instabilities in polarized ultracold Fermi gases

Inti Sodemann, D. A. Pesin, Allan H. MacDonald

We study the influence of population imbalance on the pairing, spin, and density instabilities of a two-component ideal Fermi gas after a sudden quench of interactions near a Feshbach resonance. Over a large region of parameters the pairing instability is dominated by finite-momentum pairing, suggesting the possibility of observing Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov--like states in the unstable initial dynamics. Long-wavelength density instabilities are found on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer side of the resonance, and are interpreted as a precursor of the phase separation expected at equilibrium. On the Bose-Einstein-condensate side of the resonance, the pairing instability is present for scattering lengths larger than a critical value that is only weakly dependent on population imbalance and always smaller than the scattering length at which the Stoner-like spin instability occurs.

arXiv:1201.2972•Physical Review A•Mar 21, 2012•15 citations

We propose an experiment to probe ferromagnetic phenomena in an ultracold Fermi gas, while alleviating the sensitivity to three-body loss and competing many-body instabilities. The system is initialized in a small pitch spin spiral, which becomes unstable in the presence of repulsive interactions. To linear order the exponentially growing collective modes exhibit critical slowing down close to the Stoner transition point. Also, to this order, the dynamics are identical on the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic sides of the transition. However, we show that scattering off the exponentially growing modes qualitatively alters the collective mode structure. The critical slowing down is eliminated and in its place a new unstable branch develops at large wave vectors. Furthermore, long-wavelength instabilities are quenched on the paramagnetic side of the transition. We study the experimental observation of the instabilities, specifically addressing the trapping geometry and how phase-contrast imaging will reveal the emerging domain structure. These probes of the dynamical phenomena could allow experiments to detect the transition point and distinguish between the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic regimes.

We describe the dynamics of two component non-interacting ultracold Fermions which are initially in thermal equilibrium and undergo a rapid quench to either the repulsive or attractive side of a Feshbach resonance. The short time dynamics is dominated by the exponentially growing collective modes. We study the Stoner instability and formation of ferromagnetic textures on the repulsive side, and the pairing instability towards BCS or FFLO-like states (determined by the population imbalance) on the attractive side. In each case, we evaluate the growth rate of unstable modes and predict the typical lengthscale of textures to be formed.

Measuring the tunability of effective two-body interactions near Feshbach resonances is a powerful, experimental tool in systems of ultracold atoms. It has been used to explore a variety of intriguing phenomena in recent experiments. This chapter applies the method of collective mode instabilities to the concrete example of quenches of the non-interacting Fermi gas to the strongly interacting regime. Section 9.3 begins by discussing the relation between linear response and collective modes. It shows how to compute the pairing and the ferromagnetic responses using the equation of motion formalism. Section 9.4 demonstrates how to describe a Feshbach resonance using a pseudo-potential model. Section 9.5 applies the pseudo-potential model to compute the many-body T-matrix and thus obtain the pairing collective mode. Section 9.6 discusses how to incorporate the many-body T-matrix into the ferromagnetic susceptibility. Section 9.7 summarizes the results for the pairing versus Stoner competition in the context of the MIT experiments. Section 9.8 provides concluding remarks.

Recent advances in rapidly quenched ultracold atomic Fermi gases near a Feshbach resonance have brought about a number of interesting problems in the context of observing the long-sought Stoner ferromagnetic phase transition. The possibility of experimentally obtaining a ``quasirepulsive'' regime in the upper branch of the energy spectrum due to the rapid quench is currently being debated, and the Stoner transition has mainly been investigated theoretically by using perturbation theory or at high polarization due to the limited theoretical approaches in the strongly repulsive regime. In this work, we present a nonperturbative theoretical approach to the quasirepulsive upper branch of a Fermi gas near a broad Feshbach resonance, and we determine the finite-temperature phase diagram for the Stoner instability. Our results agree well with the known quantum Monte Carlo simulations at zero temperature, and we recover the known virial expansion prediction at high temperature for arbitrary interaction strengths. At resonance, we find that the Stoner transition temperature becomes of the order of the Fermi temperature, around which the molecule formation rate becomes vanishingly small. This suggests a feasible way to observe Stoner ferromagnetism in the nondegenerate temperature regime.

Alongside superfluidity, itinerant (Stoner) ferromagnetism remains one of the most well-characterized phases of correlated Fermi systems. A recent experiment has reported the first evidence for novel phase behavior on the repulsive side of the Feshbach resonance in a two-component ultracold Fermi gas. By adapting recent theoretical studies to the atomic trap geometry, we show that an adiabatic ferromagnetic transition would take place at a weaker interaction strength than is observed in experiment. This discrepancy motivates a simple nonequilibrium theory that takes account of the dynamics of magnetic defects and three-body losses. The formalism developed displays good quantitative agreement with experiment.

We study the influence of population imbalance on the pairing, spin, and density instabilities of a two-component ideal Fermi gas after a sudden quench of interactions near a Feshbach resonance. Over a large region of parameters the pairing instability is dominated by finite-momentum pairing, suggesting the possibility of observing Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov--like states in the unstable initial dynamics. Long-wavelength density instabilities are found on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer side of the resonance, and are interpreted as a precursor of the phase separation expected at equilibrium. On the Bose-Einstein-condensate side of the resonance, the pairing instability is present for scattering lengths larger than a critical value that is only weakly dependent on population imbalance and always smaller than the scattering length at which the Stoner-like spin instability occurs.