We investigate one dimensional attractive Fermi gases in spin-dependent optical lattices. We show that three-body bound states--"trimers"--exist as soon as the two tunneling rates are different. We calculate the binding energy and the effective mass of a single trimer. We then show numerically that for finite and commensurate densities n(up) = n(down)/2 an energy gap appears, implying that the gas is a one-component Luttinger liquid of trimers with suppressed superfluid correlations. The boundaries of this novel phase are given. We discuss experimental situations to test our predictions.
We consider two-component one-dimensional quantum gases at special imbalanced commensurabilities which lead to the formation of multimer (multiparticle bound-states) as the dominant order parameter. Luttinger liquid theory supports a mode-locking mechanism in which mass (or velocity) asymmetry is identified as the key ingredient to stabilize such states. While the scenario is valid both in the continuum and on a lattice, the effects of umklapp terms relevant for densities commensurate with the lattice spacing are also mentioned. These ideas are illustrated and confronted with the physics of the asymmetric (mass-imbalanced) fermionic Hubbard model with attractive interactions and densities such that a trimer phase can be stabilized. Phase diagrams are computed using density-matrix renormalization group techniques, showing the important role of the total density in achieving the latter phase. The effective physics of the trimer gas is studied as well. Last, the effect of a parabolic confinement and the emergence of a crystal phase of trimers are briefly addressed. This model has connections with the physics of imbalanced two-component fermionic gases and Bose-Fermi mixtures as the latter gives a good phenomenological description of the numerics in the strong-coupling regime.
We pursue three-body bound states in a one-dimensional tight-binding lattice described by the Bose-Hubbard model with strong on-site interaction. Apart from the simple strongly bound ``trimer'' state corresponding to all three particles occupying the same lattice site, we find two novel kinds of weakly bound trimers with energies below and above the continuum of scattering states of a single-particle (``monomer'') and a bound-particle pair (``dimer''). The corresponding binding mechanism can be inferred from an effective Hamiltonian in the strong-coupling regime which contains an exchange interaction between the monomer and the dimer. In the limit of very strong on-site interaction, the exchange-bound trimers attain a universal value of the binding energy. These phenomena can be observed with cold atoms in optical lattices.
We consider two-component one-dimensional quantum gases at special imbalanced commensurabilities which lead to the formation of multimer (multi-particle bound-states) as the dominant order parameter. Luttinger liquid theory supports a mode-locking mechanism in which mass (or velocity) asymmetry is identified as the key ingredient to stabilize such states. While the scenario is valid both in the continuum and on a lattice, the effects of umklapp terms relevant for densities commensurate with the lattice spacing are also mentioned. These ideas are illustrated and confronted with the physics of the asymmetric (mass-imbalanced) fermionic Hubbard model with attractive interactions and densities such that a trimer phase can be stabilized. Phase diagrams are computed using density-matrix renormalization group techniques, showing the important role of the total density in achieving the novel phase. The effective physics of the trimer gas is as well studied. Lastly, the effect of a parabolic confinement and the emergence of a crystal phase of trimers are briefly addressed. This model has connections with the physics of imbalanced two-component fermionic gases and Bose-Fermi mixtures as the latter gives a good phenomenological description of the numerics in the strong-coupling regime.
Few-body bound states have been extensively explored in cold atomic gases with a desire to realize large molecular complexes. Here, we investigate the formation of trimers in an infinite one-dimensional lattice with hard-core two- and three-body interactions of relevance to Rydberg atoms and polar molecules in optical lattices, and other physical systems such as the fractional Hall states. We determine the stability regions for attractively and repulsively bound trimers. We discover a regime of large spatially extended trimers that are stabilized by the interplay of attractive two-body,
U , and repulsive three-body,
V , interactions and persist despite extremely large
V. These bound states present a new direction in the search for large few-body complexes in cold atoms.
Abstract In this paper, we investigate the bound states of
2+1 2 + 1 fermionic trimers on a three-dimensional lattice at strong coupling. Specifically, we analyze the discrete spectrum of the associated three-body discrete Schrödinger operator
Hγ,λ(K), H γ , λ ( K ) , focusing on energies below the continuum and within its gap. Depending on the quasi-momentum K , we show that if the mass ratio
γ>0 γ > 0 between the identical fermions and the third particle is below a certain threshold, the operator lacks a discrete spectrum below the essential spectrum for sufficiently large coupling
λ>0. λ > 0 . Conversely, if
γ γ exceeds this threshold,
Hγ,λ(K) H γ , λ ( K ) admits at least one eigenvalue below the essential spectrum. Similar phenomena are observed in the neighborhood of the two-particle branch of the essential spectrum, which resides within the gap and grows sublinearly as
λ→+∞. λ → + ∞ . For
K=0, K = 0 , the mass ratio thresholds are explicitly calculated and it turns out that, for certain intermediate mass ratios and large couplings, bound states emerge within the gap, although ground states are absent.