Previous work developed a
K-matrix formalism applicable to positive energies for the scattering between two
s-wave interacting particles with two internal states, isotropic spin-orbit coupling and vanishing center-of-mass momentum [H. Duan, L. You, and B. Gao, Phys. Rev. A 87, 052708 (2013).]. This work extends the formalism to the entire energy regime. Explicit solutions are obtained for the total angular momentum
J=0 and 1 channels. The behavior of the partial cross sections in the negative energy regime is analyzed in detail. We find that the leading contributions to the partial cross sections at the negative energy thresholds are governed by the spin-orbit coupling strength
kso and the mass ratio. The fact that these contributions are independent of the two-body scattering length
as is a direct consequence of the effective reduction of the dimensionality, and hence of the density of states, near the scattering thresholds due to the single-particle spin-orbit coupling terms. The results are analytically continued to the energy regime where bound states exist. It is shown that our results are consistent with results obtained by alternative approaches. Our formulation, which can be regarded as an extension of the standard textbook partial wave decomposition, can be generalized to two-body systems with other types of spin-orbit coupling, including cases where the center-of-mass momentum does not vanish.
We present an analytical description for ultracold collisions between two spin-
21 fermions with isotropic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) of the Rashba type. We show that regardless of how weak the SOC may be, at sufficiently low energies the collision properties are significantly modified. The ubiquitous low energy Wigner threshold behavior is changed and its modified form for ground-state neutral atoms is given. The particles are further found to scatter preferentially into the lower-energy helicity states due to the breaking of parity conservation. This latter point establishes interaction with SOC as one mechanism for the spontaneous emergence of handedness. Our theory is applicable both to elementary spin-
21 fermions such as electrons in condensed matter and to ultracold pseudo-spin-
21 atoms such as
6Li in its ground hyperfine state.
In a recent experiment, a two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling (SOC) was realized for fermions in the continuum [Nat. Phys. 12, 540 (2016)], which represents an important step forward in the study of synthetic gauge fields using cold atoms. In the experiment it was shown that a Raman-induced two-dimensional SOC exists in the dressed-state basis close to a Dirac point of the single-particle spectrum. By contrast, the short-range interatomic interactions of the system are typically expressed in the hyperfine-spin basis. The interplay between synthetic SOC and interactions can potentially lead to interesting few- and many-body phenomena but has so far eluded theoretical attention. Here we study in detail properties of two-body bound states of such a system. We find that, due to the competition between SOC and interaction, the stability region of the two-body bound state is in general reduced. Particularly, the threshold of the lowest two-body bound state is shifted to a positive, SOC-dependent scattering length. Furthermore, the center-of-mass momentum of the lowest two-body bound state becomes nonzero, suggesting the emergence of Fulde-Ferrell pairing states in a many-body setting. Our results reveal the critical difference between the experimentally realized two-dimensional SOC and the more symmetric Rashba or Dresselhaus SOCs in an interacting system, paving the way for future characterizations of topological superfluid states in the experimentally relevant systems.
Two-body scattering constitutes one of the most fundamental processes in various physical systems ranging from ultracold dilute quantum gases to energetic quark- gluon plasmas. In this dissertation, we study the low-energy atomic collision physics in the presence of synthetic gauge fields, which are generated by atom-light interaction. One category of synthetic gauge fields is the artificial spin-orbit coupling. We discuss three different aspects in scattering theory: ultracold collision, scattering resonance, and bound state formation from a few-body perspective when the atomic spin states are coupled with their center-of-mass motion. The understanding of the spin-orbit effects on the modification of the scattering processes not only builds the foundation of collision physics in the presence of non-abelian gauge fields but also paves the way towards unraveling the few-body correlations in many-body systems.
We derive the universal relations for an ultracold two-component Fermi gas with a spin-orbit coupling (SOC) ${\ensuremath{\sum}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha},\ensuremath{\beta}=x,y,z}{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\beta}}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}{p}_{\ensuremath{\beta}}$, where
px,y,z and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x,y,z}$ are the single-atom momentum and Pauli operators for pseudospin, respectively, and the SOC intensity ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\beta}}$ could take an arbitrary value. We consider the system with an
s-wave short-range interspecies interaction, and ignore the SOC-induced modification for the value of the scattering length. Using the first-quantized approach developed by Tan [S. Tan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 145302 (2011)], we obtain the short-range and high-momentum expansions for the one-body real-space correlation function and momentum distribution function, respectively. For our system these functions are a $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}2$ matrix in the pseudospin basis. We find that the leading-order (
1/k4) behavior of the diagonal elements of the momentum distribution function, i.e., ${n}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}\ensuremath{\uparrow}}(\mathbf{k})$ and ${n}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}\ensuremath{\downarrow}}(\mathbf{k})$, are not modified by the SOC. However, the SOC can significantly modify the large-
k behaviors of the distribution difference $\ensuremath{\delta}n(\mathbf{k})\ensuremath{\equiv}{n}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}\ensuremath{\uparrow}}(\mathbf{k})\ensuremath{-}{n}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}\ensuremath{\downarrow}}(\mathbf{k})$ as well as the nondiagonal elements of the momentum distribution function, i.e., ${n}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}\ensuremath{\downarrow}}(\mathbf{k})$ and ${n}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}\ensuremath{\uparrow}}(\mathbf{k})$. In the absence of the SOC, the leading order of $\ensuremath{\delta}n(\mathbf{k})$, ${n}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}\ensuremath{\downarrow}}(\mathbf{k})$, and ${n}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}\ensuremath{\uparrow}}(\mathbf{k})$ is
O(1/k6). When SOC appears, it can induce a term on the order of
1/k5 for these elements. We further derive the adiabatic relation and the energy functional. Our results show that the SOC can induce an additional term in the energy functional, which describes the contribution from the SOC to the total energy. In addition, the form of the adiabatic relation for our system is not modified by the SOC. Our results are applicable for the systems with any type of single-atom trapping potential, which could be either diagonal or nondiagonal in the pseudospin basis.
A theoretical study of the low-energy scattering properties of two aligned identical bosonic and fermionic dipoles in the presence of isotropic spin-orbit coupling is presented. A general treatment of particles with arbitrary (pseudo)spin is given in the framework of multichannel scattering. At ultracold temperatures and away from shape resonances or closed-channel dominated resonances, the cross section can be well described within the Born approximation to within corrections due to the
s-wave scattering. We compare our findings with numerical calculations and find excellent agreement.