Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1107.3930 · Oxford University Press eBooks

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

David Pekker, Eugene Demler

Published Nov 15, 2012• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661886.003.0009

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

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

Spin response and metastability of a strongly repulsive Fermi gas of ultracold atoms

Andrea Amico, Francesco Scazza, Giacomo Valtolina +6 more

Ultracold atomic Fermi gases close to Feshbach resonances represent the ideal platform to study strongly correlated fermionic states [1]. Up to now, most of the experimental efforts have been dedicated to the study of the famous BEC-BCS crossover, i.e. the transition from a Bose-Einstein condensate of tightly bound molecules to a BCS superfluid of long-range fermion pairs. However, such fermionic gases are the ideal environment to explore also the effects of strong, repulsive interactions. The interest in studying repulsive Fermi gases is manifold, since many phase transitions are driven by the strong repulsion between electrons in solids. One notable example is represented by the onset of itinerant ferromagnetism in metals, as envisioned by Stoner almost ninety years ago.

Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)•Jun 1, 2017•0 citations

Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Correlated Fermi Gases

Johannes Kombe

Strongly correlated quantum systems display a myriad of complex, fascinating behaviour. The competition between charge, spin, orbital, or lattice degrees of freedom and their respective energy scales gives rise to rich and complex emergent phases. More recently, the non-equilibrium properties of correlated quantum many-body systems have come into the focus of active research, with remarkable advances. While the advent of tensor network based simulations on the theoretical side has allowed access to the full time-evolution of the quantum state as it traverses the Hilbert space, the experimental progress in the ultracold atom community has allowed physicists to enter the paradigm of analog quantum simulation. Their tunability and isolation from the environment makes them ideal platforms to emulate and study open problems in condensed matter physics and go beyond the simulational capabilities of state of the art classical simulations. In this thesis, we explore the dynamics of correlated Fermi gases. We develop and present different facets of applicability of radiofrequency modulation techniques to drive the system out of equilibrium. We begin by considering a homogeneous, three-dimensional Fermi gas in the BCS-BEC crossover and develop an off-resonant radiofrequency transfer scheme to excite the Higgs mode of the superfluid. In a subsequent study we investigate the tunability of the coherence between Cooper pairs by tuning the duration of interaction ramps of the internal interaction strength. These works highlight the possibility to externally tune and stabilise complex quantum many-body states away from equilibrium. Using quasi-exact matrix product state simulations, we study the response of an attractively interacting, one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model to weak radiofrequency perturbations. We reveal the emergence of two distinct dynamical regimes in the time evolution and are able to relate it back to the underlying excitation spectrum of the system. Finally, we explore the possibility to perform quantum quenches through radiofrequency π-pulses, achieving nearly complete population transfer between different interacting fermionic states. We reveal non-trivial dynamical effects in the pair correlation of the final state, as well as the excitation of a collective trap mode of the system.

•Oct 26, 2020•0 citations

Exchange interactions and itinerant ferromagnetism in ultracold Fermi gases

E. Vermeyen, Carlos A. R. Sá de Melo, Jacques Tempere

In the 1930s, two main paradigms for the theoretical description of ferromagnetism were developed: Heisenberg ferromagnetism of localized fermions (e.g., in a lattice), and Bloch or Stoner ferromagnetism of nonlocalized fermions (i.e., in a gas), also called itinerant ferromagnetism. Despite many theoretical predictions, itinerant ferromagnetism has remained elusive in experiments. This ferromagnetic state is predicted to occur for strong repulsive interactions, corresponding to a regime that is very challenging to describe theoretically because there are multiple competing physical effects, including superfluid pairing. In this paper, we point out that the problem of itinerant ferromagnetism for atomic Fermi gases is different from that of electron gases in metals due to the short-range nature of the interatomic interactions. We also show that the standard saddle point used to describe itinerant ferromagnetism of the electron gas in metals does not apply, because in the short-range limit of this approximation the Pauli exclusion principle is violated. As a remedy, we introduce a modified interaction pseudopotential for ultracold gases which includes both local (Hartree) and nonlocal (Fock) terms while preserving the Pauli exclusion principle in the short-range regime. Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of this method to study the existence and stability of itinerant ferromagnetism in ultracold atomic gases. Lastly, we obtain the critical temperature for the ferromagnetic transition as a function of the opposite-spin interaction strength and find a rather good agreement with recent experimental results.

arXiv:1511.04502•Physical Review A•Aug 31, 2018•8 citations
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.
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.
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.
Ultracold atomic Fermi gases close to Feshbach resonances represent the ideal platform to study strongly correlated fermionic states [1]. Up to now, most of the experimental efforts have been dedicated to the study of the famous BEC-BCS crossover, i.e. the transition from a Bose-Einstein condensate of tightly bound molecules to a BCS superfluid of long-range fermion pairs. However, such fermionic gases are the ideal environment to explore also the effects of strong, repulsive interactions. The interest in studying repulsive Fermi gases is manifold, since many phase transitions are driven by the strong repulsion between electrons in solids. One notable example is represented by the onset of itinerant ferromagnetism in metals, as envisioned by Stoner almost ninety years ago.
Strongly correlated quantum systems display a myriad of complex, fascinating behaviour. The competition between charge, spin, orbital, or lattice degrees of freedom and their respective energy scales gives rise to rich and complex emergent phases. More recently, the non-equilibrium properties of correlated quantum many-body systems have come into the focus of active research, with remarkable advances. While the advent of tensor network based simulations on the theoretical side has allowed access to the full time-evolution of the quantum state as it traverses the Hilbert space, the experimental progress in the ultracold atom community has allowed physicists to enter the paradigm of analog quantum simulation. Their tunability and isolation from the environment makes them ideal platforms to emulate and study open problems in condensed matter physics and go beyond the simulational capabilities of state of the art classical simulations. In this thesis, we explore the dynamics of correlated Fermi gases. We develop and present different facets of applicability of radiofrequency modulation techniques to drive the system out of equilibrium. We begin by considering a homogeneous, three-dimensional Fermi gas in the BCS-BEC crossover and develop an off-resonant radiofrequency transfer scheme to excite the Higgs mode of the superfluid. In a subsequent study we investigate the tunability of the coherence between Cooper pairs by tuning the duration of interaction ramps of the internal interaction strength. These works highlight the possibility to externally tune and stabilise complex quantum many-body states away from equilibrium. Using quasi-exact matrix product state simulations, we study the response of an attractively interacting, one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model to weak radiofrequency perturbations. We reveal the emergence of two distinct dynamical regimes in the time evolution and are able to relate it back to the underlying excitation spectrum of the system. Finally, we explore the possibility to perform quantum quenches through radiofrequency π-pulses, achieving nearly complete population transfer between different interacting fermionic states. We reveal non-trivial dynamical effects in the pair correlation of the final state, as well as the excitation of a collective trap mode of the system.
In the 1930s, two main paradigms for the theoretical description of ferromagnetism were developed: Heisenberg ferromagnetism of localized fermions (e.g., in a lattice), and Bloch or Stoner ferromagnetism of nonlocalized fermions (i.e., in a gas), also called itinerant ferromagnetism. Despite many theoretical predictions, itinerant ferromagnetism has remained elusive in experiments. This ferromagnetic state is predicted to occur for strong repulsive interactions, corresponding to a regime that is very challenging to describe theoretically because there are multiple competing physical effects, including superfluid pairing. In this paper, we point out that the problem of itinerant ferromagnetism for atomic Fermi gases is different from that of electron gases in metals due to the short-range nature of the interatomic interactions. We also show that the standard saddle point used to describe itinerant ferromagnetism of the electron gas in metals does not apply, because in the short-range limit of this approximation the Pauli exclusion principle is violated. As a remedy, we introduce a modified interaction pseudopotential for ultracold gases which includes both local (Hartree) and nonlocal (Fock) terms while preserving the Pauli exclusion principle in the short-range regime. Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of this method to study the existence and stability of itinerant ferromagnetism in ultracold atomic gases. Lastly, we obtain the critical temperature for the ferromagnetic transition as a function of the opposite-spin interaction strength and find a rather good agreement with recent experimental results.