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arXiv:1304.3926 · Physical Review A

Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov or Majorana superfluids: The fate of fermionic cold atoms in spin-orbit-coupled optical lattices

Chunlei Qu, Ming Gong, Chuanwei Zhang

Published May 16, 2014• 21 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The recent experimental realization of spin-orbit (SO) coupling for ultracold atoms opens a completely new avenue for exploring new quantum matters. In experiments, the SO coupling is implemented simultaneously with a Zeeman field. Such SO-coupled Fermi gases are predicted to support Majorana fermions with non-Abelian exchange statistics in one dimension (1D). However, as shown in recent theory and experiments for 1D spin-imbalanced Fermi gases, the Zeeman field can lead to the long-sought Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluids with nonzero center-of-mass momentum Cooper pairings, in contrast to the zero center-of-mass momentum pairings in Majorana superfluids. Therefore a natural question to ask is which phase, FFLO or Majorana superfluids, will survive in SO-coupled Fermi gases in the presence of a large out-of-plane Zeeman field. In this paper, we address this question by studying the mean-field quantum phases of 1D (quasi-1D) SO-coupled fermionic cold-atom optical lattices.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.053618

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The recent experimental realization of spin-orbit (SO) coupling for ultracold atoms opens a completely new avenue for exploring new quantum matters. In experiments, the SO coupling is implemented simultaneously with a Zeeman field. Such SO-coupled Fermi gases are predicted to support Majorana fermions with non-Abelian exchange statistics in one dimension (1D). However, as shown in recent theory and experiments for 1D spin-imbalanced Fermi gases, the Zeeman field can lead to the long-sought Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluids with nonzero center-of-mass momentum Cooper pairings, in contrast to the zero center-of-mass momentum pairings in Majorana superfluids. Therefore a natural question to ask is which phase, FFLO or Majorana superfluids, will survive in SO-coupled Fermi gases in the presence of a large out-of-plane Zeeman field. In this paper, we address this question by studying the mean-field quantum phases of 1D (quasi-1D) SO-coupled fermionic cold-atom optical lattices.
Topological Fermi superfluids have played the central role in various fields of physics. However, all previous studies focus on the cases where Cooper pairs have zero center-of-mass momenta (i.e., normal superfluids). The topology of Fulde–Ferrell (FF) superfluids with nonzero momentum pairings have never been explored until recent findings that FF superfluids in a spin–orbit (SO) coupled Fermi gas can accommodate Majorana fermions in real space in low dimensions and Weyl fermions in momentum space in three dimension. In this review, we first discuss the mechanism of pairings in SO coupled Fermi gases in optical lattices subject to Zeeman fields, showing that SO coupling as well as Zeeman fields enhance FF states while suppress Larkin–Ovchinnikov states. We then present the low temperature phase diagram including both FF superfluids and topological FF superfluids phases in both two dimension and three dimension. In one dimension, Majorana fermions as well as phase dependent order parameter are visualized. In three dimension, we show the properties of Weyl fermions in momentum space such as anisotropic linear dispersion, Fermi arch, and gaplessness away from k⊥ = 0. Finally, we discuss some possible methods to probe FF superfluids and topological FF superfluids in cold atom systems.
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. Recent theoretical predictions show that topological Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluids can be realized with appropriate spin-orbit coupling and in-plane Zeeman fields. In this work, a comprehensive understanding of the pairing symmetry, phase diagram, and the edge modes in this topological matter are presented. The center-of-mass momentum of the Cooper pairs plays the role of renormalizing the in-plane Zeeman fields and chemical potential. The in-plane Zeeman fields also induce asymmetry to the effective ppp-wave pairing, apart from a small fraction of higher orbital components. As a result, the phase diagram is composed by different phases, which are determined by the Fermi surface topology and band gap width of the superfluids. Especially, the gapped and gapless topological FFLO phases have totally different finite size effects. These features show that the spin-orbit coupled cold atoms provide an important platform in realizing topological matters which may not be materialized with solids.
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.
The Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase, a superconducting state with nonzero total momentum Cooper pairs in a large magnetic field, was first predicted about 50 years ago and has since become an important concept in many branches of physics. Despite an intensive search in various materials, unambiguous experimental evidence for the FFLO phase is still lacking in experiments. In this paper we show that both Fulde-Ferrell (FF) (a uniform order parameter with a plane-wave phase) and Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) phases (a spatially varying order parameter amplitude) can be observed using fermionic cold atoms in spin-orbit-coupled optical lattices. The increasing spin-orbit coupling enhances the FF phase over the LO phase. The coexistence of superfluid and magnetic orders is also found in the normal BCS phase. The pairing mechanism for different phases is understood by visualizing superfluid pairing densities in different spin-orbit bands. The possibility of observing similar physics using spin-orbit-coupled superconducting ultrathin films is also discussed.
We investigate theoretically the prospect of realizing a topological superfluid in one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled atomic Fermi gases under a Zeeman field in harmonic traps. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling, it is well known that the system is either a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluid or an inhomogeneous Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluid. Here we show that with spin-orbit coupling it could be driven into a topological superfluid, which supports zero-energy Majorana modes. However, in the weakly interacting regime the topological superfluid prefers to stay at the trap edge, in contrast to a FFLO superfluid, which occurs near the trap center. As a result, it is unlikely to experimentally observe an inhomogeneous FFLO superfluid with topo-logical order without specifically tailoring the geometry or other parameters of the Fermi cloud.
Spin-imbalanced ultra-cold Fermi gases have been widely studied recently as a platform for exploring the long-sought Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluid phases, but so far conclusive evidence has not been found. Here we propose to realize an FF superfluid without spin imbalance in a three-dimensional (3D) fermionic cold atom optical lattice, where sand p-orbital bands of the lattice are coupled by another weak moving optical lattice. Such coupling leads to a spin-independent asymmetric Fermi surface, which, together with the s-wave scattering interaction between two spins, yields an FF type of superfluid pairing. Unlike traditional schemes, our proposal does not rely on the spin imbalance (or an equivalent Zeeman field) to induce the Fermi surface mismatch and may provide a completely new route for realizing FF superfluids.