We consider interacting ultracold fermions subject to Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We construct a single-branch interacting theory for the Fermi gas when the system is dilute enough so that the positive helicity branch is not occupied at all in the non-interacting ground state. We show that the theory is renormalizable in perturbation theory and therefore yields a model of polarized fermions that avoids a multi-channel treatment of the problem. Our results open the path towards a much more straightforward approach to the many-body physics of cold atoms subject to artificial vector potentials.
We consider interacting ultracold fermions subject to Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We construct a single-branch interacting theory for the Fermi gas when the system is dilute enough so that the positive helicity branch is not occupied at all in the non-interacting ground state. We show that the theory is renormalizable in perturbation theory and therefore yields a model of polarized fermions that avoids a multi-channel treatment of the problem. Our results open the path towards a much more straightforward approach to the many-body physics of cold atoms subject to artificial vector potentials.
In this Thesis we discussed ultracold Fermi gas with an s-wave interaction and synthetic spin-orbit coupling under a variety of conditions. We considered the system in both three and two spatial dimensions, with equal-Rashba-Dresselhaus type or Rashba-only type of spin-orbit-coupling, and with or without an artificial Zeeman field. We found competing effects on Fermionic superfluidity from spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman fields, and topologically non-trivial states in the presence of both fields. We gave an outlook on the many-body physics in the last.
Motivated by the remarkable experimental control of synthetic gauge fields in ultracold atomic systems, we investigate the effect of an artificial Rashba spin-orbit coupling on the spin polarization of a two-dimensional repulsive Fermi gas. By using a variational many-body wave function, based on a suitable spinorial structure, we find that the polarization properties of the system are indeed controlled by the interplay between spin-orbit coupling and repulsive interaction. In particular, two main effects are found: (1) The Rashba coupling determines a gradual increase of the degree of polarization beyond the critical repulsive interaction strength, at variance with conventional two-dimensional Stoner instability. (2) The critical interaction strength, above which finite polarization is developed, shows a dependence on the Rashba coupling, i.e., it is enhanced in case the Rashba coupling exceeds a critical value. A simple analytic expression for the critical interaction strength is further derived in the context of our variational formulation, which allows for a straightforward and insightful analysis of the present problem.
This review focuses on recent developments in synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling in ultracold atomic gases. Two types of SO coupling are discussed. One is Raman process induced coupling between spin and motion along one of the spatial directions and the other is Rashba SO coupling. We emphasize their common features in both single-particle and two-body physics and the consequences of both in many-body physics. For instance, single particle ground state degeneracy leads to novel features of superfluidity and a richer phase diagram; increased low-energy density-of-state enhances interaction effects; the absence of Galilean invariance and spin-momentum locking gives rise to intriguing behaviours of superfluid critical velocity and novel quantum dynamics; and the mixing of two-body singlet and triplet states yields a novel fermion pairing structure and topological superfluids. With these examples, we show that investigating SO coupling in cold atom systems can, enrich our understanding of basic phenomena such as superfluidity, provide a good platform for simulating condensed matter states such as topological superfluids and more importantly, result in novel quantum systems such as SO coupled unitary Fermi gas and high spin quantum gases. Finally we also point out major challenges and some possible future directions.
We briefly review recent progress on ultracold atomic Fermi gases with different types of synthetic spin-orbit coupling, including the one-dimensional (1D) equal weight Rashba-Dresselhaus and two-dimensional (2D) Rasbha spin-orbit couplings. Theoretically, we show how the single-body, two-body and many-body properties of Fermi gases are dramatically changed by spin-orbit coupling. In particular, the interplay between spin-orbit coupling and interatomic interaction may lead to several long-sought exotic superfluid phases at low temperatures, such as anisotropic superfluid, topological superfluid and inhomogeneous superfluid. Experimentally, only the first type - equal weight combination of Rasbha and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings - has been realized very recently using a two-photon Raman process. We show how to characterize a normal spin-orbit coupled atomic Fermi gas in both non-interacting and strongly-interacting limits, using particularly momentum-resolved radio-frequency spectroscopy. The experimental demonstration of a strongly-interacting spin-orbit coupled Fermi gas opens a promising way to observe various exotic superfluid phases in the near future.
In this work, we study the BCS-BEC crossover and quantum phase transition in a Fermi gas under Rashba spin-orbit coupling close to a Feshbach resonance. By adopting a two-channel model, we take into account the closed-channel molecules, and show that combined with spin-orbit coupling, a finite background scattering in the open channel can lead to two branches of solution for both the two-body and the many-body ground states. The branching of the two-body bound-state solution originates from the avoided crossing between bound states in the open and the closed channels, respectively. For the many-body states, we identify a quantum phase transition in the upper branch regardless of the sign of the background scattering length, which is in clear contrast to the case without spin-orbit coupling. For systems with negative background scattering length in particular, we show that the bound state in the open channel, and hence the quantum phase transition in the upper branch, are induced by spin-orbit coupling. We then characterize the critical detuning of the quantum phase transition for both positive and negative background scattering lengths, and demonstrate the optimal parameters for the critical point to be probed experimentally.
We theoretically investigate a Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas near Feshbach resonances, by using mean-field theory and a two-channel model that takes into account explicitly Feshbach molecules in the closed channel. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling, when the channel coupling g between the closed and the open channels is strong, it is widely accepted that the two-channel model is equivalent to a single-channel model that excludes Feshbach molecules. This is the so-called broad resonance limit, which is well satisfied by ultracold atomic Fermi gases of 6Li atoms and 40K atoms in current experiments. Here, with Rashba spin-orbit coupling we find that the condition for equivalence becomes much more stringent. As a result, the single-channel model may already be insufficient to describe properly an atomic Fermi gas of 40K atoms at a moderate spin-orbit coupling. We determine a characteristic channel coupling strength gc as a function of the spin-orbit-coupling strength, above which the single-channel and two-channel models are approximately equivalent. We also find that for narrow resonance with small-channel coupling, the pairing gap and molecular fraction are strongly suppressed by SO coupling. Our results can be readily tested in 40K atoms by using optical molecular spectroscopy.