We obtain the superfluid transition temperature of equal Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit- and Rabi-coupled Fermi superfluids, from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) to Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) regimes in three dimensions for tunable
s-wave interactions. In the presence of Rabi coupling, we find that spin-orbit coupling enhances (reduces) the critical temperature in the BEC (BCS) limit. For fixed interactions, we show that spin-orbit coupling can convert a first-order (discontinuous) phase transition into a second-order (continuous) phase transition, as a function of Rabi coupling. We derive the Ginzburg-Landau free energy to sixth power in the superfluid order parameter to describe both continuous and discontinuous phase transitions as a function of spin-orbit and Rabi couplings. Lastly, we develop a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau fluctuation theory for an arbitrary mixture of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings at any interaction strength.
We review the study of the superfluid phase transition in a system of fermions whose interaction can be tuned continuously along the crossover from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconducting phase to a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), also in the presence of a spin–orbit coupling. Below a critical temperature the system is characterized by an order parameter. Generally a mean field approximation cannot reproduce the correct behavior of the critical temperature Tc over the whole crossover. We analyze the crucial role of quantum fluctuations beyond the mean-field approach useful to find Tc along the crossover in the presence of a spin–orbit coupling, within a path integral approach. A formal and detailed derivation for the set of equations useful to derive Tc is performed in the presence of Rashba, Dresselhaus and Zeeman couplings. In particular in the case of only Rashba coupling, for which the spin–orbit effects are more relevant, the two-body bound state exists for any value of the interaction, namely in the full crossover. As a result the effective masses of the emerging bosonic excitations are finite also in the BCS regime.
We investigate the pair condensation of a two-spin-component Fermi gas in the presence of both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings. We calculate the condensate fraction in the BCS-BEC (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer--Bose-Einstein condensate) crossover in both two and three dimensions by taking into account singlet and triplet pairings. These quantities are studied by varying the spin-orbit interaction from the case with the only-Rashba to the equal-Rashba-Dresselhaus one. We find that by mixing the two couplings, the singlet pairing decreases while the triplet pairing is suppressed in the BCS regime and increased in the BEC regime, both in two and three dimensions. At fixed spin-orbital strength, the greatest total condensate fraction is obtained when only one coupling (only Rashba or only Dresselhaus) is present.
We discuss the evolution from BCS to Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) superfluids in the presence of spin-orbit coupling for a balanced mixture of ultracold fermions. The dependence of several thermodynamic properties, such as chemical potential, order parameter, pressure, entropy, isothermal compressibility, and spin susceptibility tensor on the spin-orbit coupling and interaction parameter at low temperatures are analyzed. We studied both equal Rashba and Dresselhaus (ERD) and the Rashba-only (RO) spin-orbit coupling. Comparisons between the two cases reveal several striking differences in the corresponding thermodynamic quantities. Finally, we propose measuring the isothermal compressibility and spin susceptibility as a way of detecting the effects of the spin-orbit coupling.
We consider the evolution of superfluid properties of a three-dimensional p-wave Fermi gas from a weak coupling Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) to strong coupling Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) limit as a function of scattering volume. At zero temperature, we show that a quantum phase transition occurs for p-wave systems, unlike the s-wave case where the BCS to BEC evolution is just a crossover. Near the critical temperature, we derive a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (GL) theory and show that the GL coherence length is generally anisotropic due to the p-wave nature of the order parameter, and becomes isotropic only in the BEC limit.
We analyze the evolution of superfluidity for nonzero orbital angular momentum channels from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) to the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) limit in three dimensions. First, we analyze the low-energy scattering properties of finite range interactions for all possible angular momentum channels. Second, we discuss ground-state
(T=0) superfluid properties including the order parameter, chemical potential, quasiparticle excitation spectrum, momentum distribution, atomic compressibility, ground-state energy, and low-energy collective excitations. We show that a quantum phase transition occurs for nonzero angular momentum pairing, unlike the
s-wave case where the BCS to BEC evolution is just a crossover. Third, we present a Gaussian fluctuation theory near the critical temperature
(T=Tc), and we analyze the number of bound, scattering, and unbound fermions as well as the chemical potential. Finally, we derive the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau functional near
Tc, and compare the Ginzburg-Landau coherence length with the zero-temperature average Cooper pair size.