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arXiv:1110.6364

Artificial spin-orbit coupling in ultra-cold Fermi superfluids

Kangjun Seo, Han Li, C. A. R. Sá de Melo

Published Oct 28, 2011• 1 citation
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Abstract

We develop a theory for interacting fermions in the presence of spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman fields, and show that many new superfluids phases, which are topological in nature, emerge. Depending on values of spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman fields, and interactions, initially gapped s-wave superfluids acquire p-wave, d-wave, f-wave and higher angular momentum components, which produce zeros in the excitation spectrum, rendering the superfluid gapless. Several multi-critical points, which separate topological superfluid phases from normal or non-uniform, are accessible depending on spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman fields or interactions, setting the stage for the study of tunable topological superfluids.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1110.6364

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We develop a theory for interacting fermions in the presence of spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman fields, and show that many new superfluids phases, which are topological in nature, emerge. Depending on values of spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman fields, and interactions, initially gapped s-wave superfluids acquire p-wave, d-wave, f-wave and higher angular momentum components, which produce zeros in the excitation spectrum, rendering the superfluid gapless. Several multi-critical points, which separate topological superfluid phases from normal or non-uniform, are accessible depending on spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman fields or interactions, setting the stage for the study of tunable topological superfluids.
Spin-orbit coupled fermions offer a fascinating playground for realizing interesting topological quantum phases and the associated quantum critical phenomena. In two dimensions and in the presence of an attractive s-wave pairing interaction and a Zeeman field, spin-orbit coupled fermions can condense into a fully gapped non-Abelian topological superfluid phase separated from a conventional s-wave superfluid phase by a topological quantum phase transition. The critical point for this transition is marked by the proliferation of gapless nodal quasiparticles which can be tracked by studying the momentumresolved excitation spectrum from the center of the Brillouin zone. In three dimensions the same system goes through a series of topological quantum transitions with increasing Zeeman field and the low energy excitations in some of these phases realize the long-sought low-temperature analog of Weyl fermions of particle physics. In this talk I will describe in some detail the interesting topological phases and the associated quantum criticality that can be realized using spin-orbit coupled fermions in cold atom systems.
We describe the quantum phases of interacting three component fermions in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, as well as linear and quadratic Zeeman fields. We classify the emerging superfluid phases in terms of the loci of zeros of their quasi-particle excitation spectrum in momentum space, and we identify several Lifshitz-type topological transitions. In the particular case of vanishing quadratic Zeeman field, a quintuple point exists where four gapless superfluid phases with surface and line nodes converge into a fully gapped superfluid phase. Lastly, we also show that the simultaneous presence of spin-orbit and Zeeman fields transforms a momentum-independent scalar order parameter into an explicitly momentum-dependent tensor in the generalized helicity basis.
We discuss the emergence of rings of zero-energy excitations in momentum space for superfluid phases of ultracold fermions when spin-orbit effects, Zeeman fields, and interactions are varied. We show that phases containing rings of nodes possess nontrivial topological invariants, and that phase transitions between distinct topological phases belong to the Lifshitz class. Upon crossing phase boundaries, existing massless Dirac fermions in the gapless phase annihilate to produce bulk zero-mode Majorana fermions at phase boundaries, and then become massive Dirac fermions in the gapped phase. We characterize these tunable topological phase transitions via several spectroscopic properties, including excitation spectrum, spectral function, and momentum distribution.
The realizations of spin-orbit coupling in cold atoms lead to a burst of research activities in the searching of topological matters in ultracold atom systems. The very recent theoretical predictions show that topological Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluids can be realized with proper spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman fields. In this work, a comprehensive understanding of the pairing symmetry, phase diagram and the edge modes in this new topological matter are presented. The momentum of the Cooper pairs plays the role of renormalizing the in-plane Zeeman field and chemical potential. The in-plane Zeeman field and finite momentum pairing induce asymmetry to the effective ppp-wave pairing, apart from a small fraction of higher orbital components. The phase diagram is composed by different phases, which are determined by the topology and band gap nature of the superfluids. Especially, the gapped and gapless topological FFLO phase have totally different finite size effect. These novel features show that the spin-orbit coupled cold atoms provides an important platform in realizing topological matters which may not be materialized with solids.
We study the emergence of finite-temperature topological phase transitions of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type and the collective mode spectrum of two-dimensional Fermi gases in the presence of attractive sss-wave interactions, spin-orbit coupling, and Zeeman fields. We show that neglecting the spin-dependent phase shift on the fermionic wave function misses an important point. Including this spin-dependent shift, we derive the effective low-energy and long-wavelength quantum action for independent (unlocked) phase fluctuations in the U(1) (charge) and SU(2) (spin) sectors and show that at least two phase transitions occur because charge and spin degrees of freedom are coupled due to the presence of spin-orbit and Zeeman fields. Furthermore, we demonstrate that vortex and antivortex excitations are characterized by two topological quantum numbers, corresponding to the quantized circulation of charge and spin velocities. Finally, we show that there are two collective modes in the superfluid phase at low temperatures which arise due to the coupling between sound and transverse-spin waves.