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arXiv:1707.06732 · Physical Review Letters

Observation of Dynamical Super-Efimovian Expansion in a Unitary Fermi Gas

Shujin Deng, Pengpeng Diao, Fang Li, Qianli Yu, Shi Yu, Haibin Wu

Published Mar 22, 2018• 13 citations
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Abstract

We report an observation of a dynamical super Efimovian expansion in a strongly interacting Fermi gas by engineering time dependent external harmonic trap frequencies. When the trap frequency is tailored as [1/4t^{2}+1/t^{2}λlog^{2}(t/t_{*})]^{1/2}, where t_{*} and λ are two controllable parameters, and the change is faster than a critical value, the expansion of such a quantum gas shows novel dynamics that share the same characteristics as the super Efimov effect. A clear double-log periodicity with discrete geometric scaling emerges for the cloud size in the expansion. The universality of such scaling dynamics is verified both in the noninteracting and in the unitarity limit of Fermi gas. Moreover, the measured energy scaling reveals that the potential and internal energy also show double-log periodicity with a π/2 phase difference, but the total energy is monotonically decreased. Observing super Efimovian evolution represents a paradigm in probing universal properties and allows us in a new way to study many-body nonequilibrium dynamics with experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.120.125301

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We report an observation of a dynamical super Efimovian expansion in a strongly interacting Fermi gas by engineering time dependent external harmonic trap frequencies. When the trap frequency is tailored as [1/4t^{2}+1/t^{2}λlog^{2}(t/t_{})]^{1/2}, where t_{} and λ are two controllable parameters, and the change is faster than a critical value, the expansion of such a quantum gas shows novel dynamics that share the same characteristics as the super Efimov effect. A clear double-log periodicity with discrete geometric scaling emerges for the cloud size in the expansion. The universality of such scaling dynamics is verified both in the noninteracting and in the unitarity limit of Fermi gas. Moreover, the measured energy scaling reveals that the potential and internal energy also show double-log periodicity with a π/2 phase difference, but the total energy is monotonically decreased. Observing super Efimovian evolution represents a paradigm in probing universal properties and allows us in a new way to study many-body nonequilibrium dynamics with experiments.
Scale invariance plays an important role in unitary Fermi gases. Discrete scaling symmetry manifests itself in quantum few-body systems such as the Efimov effect. Here, we report on the theoretical prediction and experimental observation of a distinct type of expansion dynamics for scale-invariant quantum gases. When the frequency of the harmonic trap holding the gas decreases continuously as the inverse of time t, the expansion of the cloud size exhibits a sequence of plateaus. The locations of these plateaus obey a discrete geometric scaling law with a controllable scale factor, and the expansion dynamics is governed by a log-periodic function. This marked expansion shares the same scaling law and mathematical description as the Efimov effect.
The super Efimov effect is a recently proposed three-body effect characterized by a double-exponential scaling, which has not yet been observed experimentally. Here, we present the general dynamic equations determining the cloud size of a scale-invariant quantum gas in a time-dependent harmonic trap. We show that a double-logarithmic periodicity as the hallmark of the super Efimov effect emerges when the trap frequency is decreased with a specially designed time dependence. We also demonstrate that this dynamic super Efimov effect can be realized with realistic choices of parameters in current experiments.
We study the super Efimovian expansions of a superfluid Fermi gas in the crossover from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), by using superfluid hydrodynamic equations with the equation of state fitting from the experimental data and a scaling approach. We find that in an isotropic trap, the super Efimovian expansion of the Fermi superfluid in the unitary limit is characterized by the double-log periodicity, while for an axially symmetric trap, the double-log periodicity only emerges in the longer direction for a large anisotropy of the trapping frequencies. Away from unitarity where the scale invariance is broken, the super Efimovian expansions of the superfluid Fermi gases deviate from the double-log oscillations. The oscillations in the BCS regime deviate upward from the double-log oscillations, whereas the oscillations in the BEC regime deviate downward and the deviation in the BEC limit is the most significant. This difference can be used to discriminate different superfluid regimes.
A unitary Fermi gas in an isotropic harmonic trap is predicted to show scale and conformal symmetry that have important consequences in its thermodynamic and dynamical properties. By experimentally realizing a unitary Fermi gas in an isotropic harmonic trap, we demonstrate its universal expansion dynamics along each direction and at different temperatures. We show that as a consequence of SO(2,1) symmetry, the measured release energy is equal to that of the trapping energy. We further observe the breathing mode with an oscillation frequency twice the trapping frequency and a small damping rate, providing the evidence of SO(2,1) symmetry. In addition, away from resonance when scale invariance is broken, we determine the effective exponent γ that relates the chemical potential and average density along the BEC-BCS crossover, which qualitatively agrees with the mean field predictions. This Letter opens the possibility of studying nonequilibrium dynamics in a conformal invariant system in the future.
The evolution of non-equilibrium dynamic for many-body systems is one of the most challenging problems in physics. Ultra-cold quantum atomic Fermi gas provide an test-bed for studying many-body non-equilibrium dynamics due to its high freedom of controllability, which can be used to simulate and understand the dynamics of the early universe after the Big Bang, quark-gluon produced in heavy ion collisions and nuclear physics. Generally, the evolution of many-body systems is very complex, and usually needs to be studied by symmetry. Feshbach resonance can be used to prepare scale invariant atomic Fermi gases: non-interacting and unitary Fermi gases. When far away from equilibrium state, universal exponents and functions can be used to characterize the dynamics of the system, which can be identified by scaling the temporal and spatial evolution of the system. In this review, the recent developments in the expansion dynamics of strongly interacting ultracold Fermi gases are introduced, including the anisotropic expansion of atomic gases, scaling dynamics and Efimovian expansion dynamics.
We study the quench of a degenerate ultracold Bose gas to the unitary regime, where interactions are as strong as allowed by quantum mechanics. We lay the foundation of a cumulant theory able to simultaneously capture the three-body Efimov effect and ergodic evolution. After an initial period of rapid quantum depletion, a universal prethermal stage is established, characterized by a kinetic temperature and an emergent Bogoliubov dispersion law, while the microscopic degrees of freedom remain far from equilibrium. Integrability is then broken by higher-order interaction terms in the many-body Hamiltonian, leading to a momentum-dependent departure from power law to decaying exponential behavior of the occupation numbers at large momentum. We also find signatures of the Efimov effect in the many-body dynamics and make a precise identification between the observed beating phenomenon and the binding energy of an Efimov trimer. Throughout the paper, our predictions for a uniform gas are quantitatively compared with experimental results for quenched unitary Bose gases in uniform potentials.