We present a numerical study of the interaction quench dynamics in a superfluid ultracold Fermi gas confined in a three-dimensional cigar-shaped harmonic trap. In the present paper, we investigate the amplitude mode of the superfluid order parameter after interaction quenches, which start deep in the BCS phase and end in the BCS-BEC-crossover regime. To this end, we exploit the Bogoliubov--de Gennes formalism, which takes the confinement potential explicitly into account and provides a microscopic fully coherent description of the system. We find an anharmonic nonlinear oscillation of the modulus of the superfluid order parameter, i.e., of the Higgs mode. This oscillation persists for large times with only a small amplitude modulation being visible. We connect the frequency and the mean value of this oscillation with the breaking of Cooper pairs in the superfluid phase. Additionally, we demonstrate that the occurrence of this persistent oscillation is connected to the onset of chaotic dynamics in our model. Finally, we calculate an interaction quench phase diagram of the Higgs mode for quenches on the BCS side of the BCS-BEC crossover and discuss its properties as a function of the aspect ratio of the cigar-shaped trap.
We investigate the single-particle properties at
T=0 of a trapped superfluid gas of Fermi atoms with a Feshbach resonance. A tunable pairing interaction associated with the Feshbach resonance leads to the BCS--Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) crossover, where the character of superfluidity continuously changes from the BCS-type to a BEC of composite bosons. In this paper, we extend our previous work for a uniform superfluid Fermi gas [Y. Ohashi and A. Griffin, Phys. Rev. A 67, 063612 (2003)] to include the effect of a harmonic trap. We do not use the local density approximation (LDA), but directly solve the Bogoliubov--de Gennes (BdG) coupled equations. While our explicit numerical solutions are for a weak (narrow) Feshbach resonance, we argue that the single-particle BdG excitation spectrum will exhibit the same features for a strong (broad) Feshbach resonance. Using these equations, we find self-consistent values for the spatially dependent local density
n(r) as well as the composite BCS order parameter $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}(\mathbf{r})$, the latter describing both the Cooper-pair and molecular condensate contributions. Using these results, we calculate the single-particle density of states in the crossover region, and from this determine the true single-particle energy gap
(Eg) of the trapped Fermi superfluid. This is associated with the in-gap (or Andreev) states in the low-density region at the edge of the trap. We calculate the laser-induced tunneling current $I(\ensuremath{\omega})$ into another hyperfine state, as measured in recent rf spectroscopy experiments. This rf spectrum gives a direct probe of the quasiparticle spectrum. We show how the high-energy part of $I(\ensuremath{\omega})$ gives information about $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}(r=0)$ at the center of the trap (which is comparable to the Fermi energy ${\ensuremath{\epsilon}}_{F}$ in the crossover region). We show that $I(\ensuremath{\omega})$ is very dependent on the spatial profile of the pair potential $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}(r)$ that is used. We also emphasize that the narrow ``unpaired atom" peak in the rf data gives information about
Eg and the low-energy $(⪡{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}_{F})$ in-gap states of a Fermi superfluid. While our calculations are limited to
T=0, we use them to discuss the recent data of Chin et al. and the LDA calculations of T\"orm\"a and co-workers. The LDA, while useful, can lead to an incorrect physical picture of the low-density surface region of the Fermi superfluid.
We present a numerical study of the Higgs mode in an ultracold confined Fermi gas after an interaction quench and find a dynamical vanishing of the superfluid order parameter. Our calculations are done within a microscopic density-matrix approach in the Bogoliubov--de Gennes framework which takes the three-dimensional cigar-shaped confinement explicitly into account. In this framework, we study the amplitude mode of the order parameter after interaction quenches starting on the BCS side of the BEC-BCS crossover close to the transition and ending in the BCS regime. We demonstrate the emergence of a dynamically vanishing superfluid order parameter in the spatiotemporal dynamics in a three-dimensional trap. Further, we show that the signal averaged over the whole trap mirrors the spatiotemporal behavior and allows us to systematically study the effects of the system size and aspect ratio on the observed dynamics. Our analysis enables us to connect the confinement-induced modifications of the dynamics to the pairing properties of the system. Finally, we demonstrate that the signature of the Higgs mode is contained in the dynamical signal of the condensate fraction, which, therefore, might provide a new experimental access to the nonadiabatic regime of the Higgs mode.
Bragg spectroscopy shows the evolution of gapless Goldstone modes and single-particle-like excitations in an atomic Fermi superfluid as it crosses from a Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer superfluid to the Bose–Einstein condensate regime. Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a central paradigm of elementary particle physics1, magnetism2, superfluidity3 and superconductivity4. According to Goldstone’s theorem, phase transitions that break continuous symmetries lead to the existence of gapless excitations in the long-wavelength limit5. These Goldstone modes can become the dominant low-energy excitation, showing that symmetry breaking has a profound impact on the physical properties of matter. Here, we present a comprehensive study of the elementary excitations in a homogeneous strongly interacting Fermi gas through the crossover from a Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of molecules using two-photon Bragg spectroscopy. The spectra exhibit a discrete Goldstone mode, associated with the broken-symmetry superfluid phase, as well as pair-breaking single-particle excitations. Our techniques yield a direct determination of the superfluid pairing gap and speed of sound in close agreement with strong-coupling theories.
We investigate strong-coupling superfluidity in a uniform two-component gas of ultracold Fermi atoms attractively interacting via quasimolecular bosons associated with a Feshbach resonance. This interaction is tunable by the threshold energy $2\ensuremath{\nu}$ of the Feshbach resonance, becoming large as $2\ensuremath{\nu}$ is decreased (relative to $2{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{\mathrm{F}},$ where ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{\mathrm{F}}$ is the Fermi energy of one component). In recent work, we showed that the enhancement of this tunable pairing interaction naturally leads to the BCS-BEC (Bose-Einstein condensation) crossover, where the character of the superfluid phase transition changes from the BCS type to a BEC of composite bosons consisting of preformed Cooper-pairs and Feshbach-induced molecules. In this paper, we extend our previous work and study both the quasiparticles and the collective dynamics of the superfluid phase below the phase-transition temperature
Tc, limiting ourselves to a uniform gas. We show how the superfluid order parameter changes from the Cooper-pair amplitude $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ to the square root of the number of condensed molecules $({\ensuremath{\varphi}}_{\mathrm{m}})$ associated with the Feshbach resonance, as the threshold energy $2\ensuremath{\nu}$ is lowered. In the intermediate coupling regime, the superfluidity is shown to be characterized by an order parameter consisting of a superposition of $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ and ${\ensuremath{\varphi}}_{\mathrm{m}}.$ We also discuss the Goldstone mode associated with superfluidity, and show how its character smoothly changes from the Anderson-Bogoliubov phonon in the BCS regime to the Bogoliubov phonon in the BEC regime in the BCS-BEC crossover. The velocity of this Goldstone phonon mode is shown to strongly depend on the value of $2\ensuremath{\nu}.$ We also show that this Goldstone mode appears as a resonance in the spectrum of the density-density correlation function, which is experimentally accessible.
Quantum-size oscillations of the basic physical characteristics of a confined fermionic condensate are a well-known phenomenon. Its conventional understanding is based on the single-particle physics, whereby the oscillations follow variations in the single-particle density of states driven by the size quantization. Here we present a study of a cigar-shaped ultracold superfluid Fermi gas, which demonstrates an important many-body aspect of the quantum-size coherent effects, overlooked previously. The many-body physics is revealed here in the atypical crossover from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) induced by the size quantization of the particle motion. The single-particle energy spectrum for the transverse dimensions is tightly bound, whereas for the longitudinal direction it resembles a quasi-free dispersion. This results in the formation of a series of single-particle subbands (shells) so that the aggregate fermionic condensate becomes a coherent mixture of subband condensates. Each time when the lower edge of a subband crosses the chemical potential, the BCS-BEC crossover is approached in this subband, and the aggregate condensate contains both BCS and BEC-like components.