We investigate the zero-temperature ferromagnetic behavior of a two-component repulsive Fermi gas in the presence of a correlated random field that represents an optical speckle pattern. The density is tuned so that the (noninteracting) Fermi energy is close to the mobility edge of the Anderson localization transition. We employ quantum Monte Carlo simulations to determine various ground-state properties, including the equation of state, the magnetic susceptibility, and the energy of an impurity immersed in a polarized Fermi gas (repulsive polaron). In the weakly interacting limit, the magnetic susceptibility is found to be suppressed by disorder. However, it rapidly increases with the interaction strength, and it diverges at a much weaker interaction strength compared to the clean gas. Both the transition from the paramagnetic phase to the partially ferromagnetic phase, and the one from the partially to the fully ferromagnetic phase, are strongly favored by disorder, indicating a case of order induced by disorder.
Using continuous-space quantum Monte Carlo methods, we investigate the zero-temperature ferromagnetic behavior of a two-component repulsive Fermi gas under the influence of periodic potentials that describe the effect of a simple-cubic optical lattice. Simulations are performed with balanced and with imbalanced components, including the case of a single impurity immersed in a polarized Fermi sea (repulsive polaron). For an intermediate density below half filling, we locate the transitions between the paramagnetic, and the partially and fully ferromagnetic phases. As the intensity of the optical lattice increases, the ferromagnetic instability takes place at weaker interactions, indicating a possible route to observe ferromagnetism in experiments performed with ultracold atoms. We compare our findings with previous predictions based on the standard computational method used in material science, namely density functional theory, and with results based on tight-binding models.
We investigate the phase diagram of a two-component repulsive Fermi gas at T=0 by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Both purely repulsive and resonant attractive model potentials are considered in order to analyze the limits of the universal regime where the details of interatomic forces can be neglected. The equation of state of both balanced and unbalanced systems is calculated as a function of the interaction strength and the critical density for the onset of ferromagnetism is determined. The energy of the strongly polarized gas is calculated and parametrized in terms of the physical properties of repulsive polarons, which are relevant for the stability of the fully ferromagnetic state. Finally, we analyze the phase diagram in the interaction-polarization plane under the assumption that only phases with homogeneous magnetization can be produced.
We investigate the zero-temperature metal-insulator transition in a one-dimensional two-component Fermi gas in the presence of a quasiperiodic potential resulting from the superposition of two optical lattices of equal intensity but incommensurate periods. A mobility edge separating (low-energy) Anderson localized and (high-energy) extended single-particle states appears in this continuous-space model beyond a critical intensity of the quasiperiodic potential. To discern the metallic phase from the insulating phase in the interacting many-fermion system, we employ unbiased quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations combined with the many-particle localization length familiar from the modern theory of the insulating state. In the noninteracting limit, the critical optical-lattice intensity for the metal-insulator transition predicted by the QMC simulations coincides with the Anderson localization transition of the single-particle eigenstates. We show that weak repulsive interactions induce a shift of this critical point towards larger intensities, meaning that repulsion favors metallic behavior. This shift appears to be linear in the interaction parameter, suggesting that even infinitesimal interactions can affect the position of the critical point.
It is generally believed that a dilute spin-
21 Fermi gas with repulsive interactions can undergo a ferromagnetic phase transition to a spin-polarized state at a critical gas parameter
(kFa)c. Previous theoretical predictions of the ferromagnetic phase transition have been based on the perturbation theory, which treats the gas parameter as a small number. On the other hand, Belitz, Kirkpatrick, and Vojta (BKV) have argued that the phase transition in clean itinerant ferromagnets is generically of first order at low temperatures, due to the correlation effects that lead to a nonanalytic term in the free energy. The second-order perturbation theory predicts a first-order phase transition at
(kFa)c=1.054, consistent with the BKV argument. However, since the critical gas parameter is expected to be of order
O(1), perturbative predictions may be unreliable. In this paper we study the nonperturbative effects on the ferromagnetic phase transition by summing the particle-particle ladder diagrams to all orders in the gas parameter. We consider a universal repulsive Fermi gas where the effective range effects can be neglected, which can be realized in a two-component Fermi gas of
6Li atoms by using a nonadiabatic field switch to the upper branch of a Feshbach resonance with a positive
s-wave scattering length. Our theory predicts a second-order phase transition, which indicates that ferromagnetic transition in dilute Fermi gases is possibly a counterexample to the BKV argument. The predicted critical gas parameter
(kFa)c=0.858 is in good agreement with the recent quantum Monte Carlo result
(kFa)c=0.86 for a nearly zero-range potential [S. Pilati et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 030405 (2010)]. We also compare the spin susceptibility with the quantum Monte Carlo result and find good agreement.
A degenerate Fermi gas is rapidly quenched into the regime of strong effective repulsion near a Feshbach resonance. The spin fluctuations are monitored using speckle imaging and, contrary to several theoretical predictions, the samples remain in the paramagnetic phase for an arbitrarily large scattering length. Over a wide range of interaction strengths a rapid decay into bound pairs is observed over times on the order of 10ℏ/E(F), preventing the study of equilibrium phases of strongly repulsive fermions. Our work suggests that a Fermi gas with strong short-range repulsive interactions does not undergo a ferromagnetic phase transition.
A degenerate Fermi gas is rapidly quenched into the regime of strong effective repulsion near a Feshbach resonance. The spin fluctuations are monitored using speckle imaging and, contrary to several theoretical predictions, the samples remain in the paramagnetic phase for an arbitrarily large scattering length. Over a wide range of interaction strengths a rapid decay into bound pairs is observed over times on the order of 10ℏ/E[subscript F], preventing the study of equilibrium phases of strongly repulsive fermions. Our work suggests that a Fermi gas with strong short-range repulsive interactions does not undergo a ferromagnetic phase transition.