We investigate the highly polarized limit of a two-dimensional Fermi gas, where we effectively have a single spin-down impurity atom immersed in a spin-up Fermi sea. By constructing variational wave functions for the impurity, we map out the ground state phase diagram as a function of mass ratio ${m}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}/{m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$ and interaction strength. In particular, we determine when it is favorable for the dressed impurity (polaron) to bind particles from the Fermi sea to form a dimer, trimer, or even larger clusters. Similarly to three dimensions, we find that the Fermi sea favors the trimer state so that it exists for ${m}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}/{m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$ less than the critical mass ratio for trimer formation in the vacuum. We also find a region where dimers have finite momentum in the ground state, a scenario that corresponds to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov superfluid state in the limit of large spin imbalance. For equal masses (${m}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}={m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$), we compute rigorous bounds on the polaron-dimer transition, and we show that the polaron energy and residue is well captured by the variational approach, with the former quantity being in good agreement with experiment. When there is a finite density of impurities, we find that this polaron-dimer transition is preempted by a first-order superfluid-normal transition at zero temperature, but it remains an open question what happens at finite temperature.
We study in three dimensions the problem of a spatially homogeneous zero-temperature ideal Fermi gas of spin-polarized particles of mass
m perturbed by the presence of a single distinguishable impurity of mass
M. The interaction between the impurity and the fermions involves only the partial
s wave through the scattering length
a and has negligible range
b compared to the inverse Fermi wave number
1/kF of the gas. Through the interactions with the Fermi gas the impurity gives birth to a quasiparticle, which will be here a Fermi polaron (or more precisely a monomeron). We consider the general case of an impurity moving with wave vector $\mathbf{K}\ensuremath{\ne}\mathbf{0}$: Then the quasiparticle acquires a finite lifetime in its initial momentum channel because it can radiate particle-hole pairs in the Fermi sea. A description of the system using a variational approach, based on a finite number of particle-hole excitations of the Fermi sea, then becomes inappropriate around
K=0. We rely thus upon perturbation theory, where the small and negative parameter ${k}_{\mathrm{F}}a\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{0}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ excludes any branches other than the monomeronic one in the ground state (as, e.g., the dimeronic one), and allows us a systematic study of the system. We calculate the impurity self-energy ${\ensuremath{\Sigma}}^{(2)}(\mathbf{K},\ensuremath{\omega})$ up to second order included in
a. Remarkably, we obtain an analytical explicit expression for ${\ensuremath{\Sigma}}^{(2)}(\mathbf{K},\ensuremath{\omega})$, allowing us to study its derivatives in the plane $(K,\ensuremath{\omega})$. These present interesting singularities, which in general appear in the third-order derivatives ${\ensuremath{\partial}}^{3}{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}^{(2)}(\mathbf{K},\ensuremath{\omega})$. In the special case of equal masses,
M=m, singularities appear already in the physically more accessible second-order derivatives ${\ensuremath{\partial}}^{2}{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}^{(2)}(\mathbf{K},\ensuremath{\omega})$; using a self-consistent heuristic approach based on ${\ensuremath{\Sigma}}^{(2)}$ we then regularize the divergence of the second-order derivative ${\ensuremath{\partial}}_{K}^{2}\ensuremath{\Delta}E(\mathbf{K})$ of the complex energy of the quasiparticle found in Trefzger and Castin [Europhys. Lett. 104, 50005 (2013)] at
K=kF, and we predict an interesting scaling law in the neighborhood of
K=kF. As a by product of our theory we have access to all moments of the momentum of the particle-hole pair emitted by the impurity while damping its motion in the Fermi sea at the level of Fermi's golden rule.
Polaron quasiparticles are formed when a mobile impurity is coupled to the elementary excitations of a many-particle background. In the field of ultracold atoms, the study of the associated impurity problem has attracted a growing interest over the last fifteen years. Polaron quasiparticle properties are essential to our understanding of a variety of paradigmatic quantum many-body systems realized in ultracold atomic gases and in the solid state, from imbalanced Bose–Fermi and Fermi–Fermi mixtures to fermionic Hubbard models. In this topical review, we focus on the so-called repulsive polaron branch, which emerges as an excited many-body state in systems with underlying attractive interactions such as ultracold atomic mixtures, and is characterized by an effective repulsion between the impurity and the surrounding medium. We give a brief account of the current theoretical and experimental understanding of repulsive polaron properties, for impurities embedded in both fermionic and bosonic media, and we highlight open issues deserving future investigations.
We study an impurity atom in a two-dimensional Fermi gas using variational wave functions for (i) an impurity dressed by particle-hole excitations (polaron) and (ii) a dimer consisting of the impurity and a majority atom. In contrast to three dimensions, where similar calculations predict a sharp transition to a dimer state with increasing interspecies attraction, we show that the polaron Ansatz always gives a lower energy. However, the exact solution for a heavy impurity reveals that both a two-body bound state and distortions of the Fermi sea are crucial. This reflects the importance of particle-hole pairs in lower dimensions and makes simple variational calculations unreliable. We show that the energy of an impurity gives important information about its dressing cloud, for which both Ans\"atze give inaccurate results.
We study the problem of a single impurity of mass
M immersed in a Fermi sea of particles of mass
m. The impurity and the fermions interact through an
s-wave narrow Feshbach resonance, so that the Feshbach length
R∗ naturally appears in the system. We use simple variational ans\"atze, limited to at most one pair of particle-hole excitations of the Fermi sea, and we determine for the polaronic and dimeronic branches the phase diagram between absolute ground state, local minimum, thermodynamically unstable regions (with negative effective mass), and regions of complex energies (with negative imaginary part). We also determine the closed-channel population which is experimentally accessible. Finally, we identify a nontrivial weakly attractive limit where analytical results can be obtained, in particular for the crossing point between the polaronic and dimeronic energy branches.
Abstract Polaron, a typical quasi-particle that describes a single impurity dressed with surrounding environment, serves as an ideal platform for bridging few- and many-body physics. In particular, different few-body correlations can compete with each other and lead to many intriguing phenomena. In this work, we review the recent progresses made in understanding few-body correlation effects in attractive Fermi polarons of ultracold gases. By adopting a unified variational ansatz that incorporates different few-body correlations in a single framework, we will discuss their competing effects in Fermi polarons when the impurity and majority fermions have the same or different masses. For the equal-mass case, we review the nature of polaron-molecule transition that is driven by two-body correlations, and especially highlight the finite momentum character and huge degeneracy of molecule states. For the mass-imbalanced case, we focus on the smooth crossover between polaron and various dressed clusters that originate from high-order correlations. These competing few-body correlations reviewed in Fermi polarons suggest a variety of exotic new phases in the corresponding many-body system of Fermi-Fermi mixtures.