We obtain a phase diagram of the spin-imbalanced Hubbard model on the Lieb lattice, which is known to feature a flat band in its single-particle spectrum. Using the BCS mean-field theory for multiband systems, we find a variety of superfluid phases with imbalance. In particular, we find four different types of FFLO phases, i.e., superfluid phases with periodic spatial modulation. They differ by the magnitude and direction of the center-of-mass momentum of Cooper pairs. We also see a large region of stable Sarma phase, where the density imbalance is associated with zero Cooper pair momentum. In the mechanism responsible for the formation of those phases, the crucial role is played by the flat band, wherein particles can readjust their density at zero energy cost. The multiorbital structure of the unit cell is found to stabilize the Sarma phase by allowing for a modulation of the order parameter within a unit cell. We also study the effect of finite temperature and a lattice with staggered hopping parameters on the behavior of these phases.
We obtain a phase diagram of the spin-imbalanced Hubbard model on the Lieb lattice, which is known to feature a flat band in its single-particle spectrum. Using the BCS mean-field theory for multiband systems, we find a variety of superfluid phases with imbalance. In particular, we find four different types of FFLO phases, i.e., superfluid phases with periodic spatial modulation. They differ by the magnitude and direction of the center-of-mass momentum of Cooper pairs. We also see a large region of stable Sarma phase, where the density imbalance is associated with zero Cooper pair momentum. In the mechanism responsible for the formation of those phases, the crucial role is played by the flat band, wherein particles can readjust their density at zero energy cost. The multiorbital structure of the unit cell is found to stabilize the Sarma phase by allowing for a modulation of the order parameter within a unit cell. We also study the effect of finite temperature and a lattice with staggered hopping parameters on the behavior of these phases.
We study the attractive Hubbard model with spin imbalance on two lattices featuring a flat band: the Lieb and kagome lattices. We present mean-field phase diagrams featuring exotic superfluid phases, similar to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state, whose stability is confirmed by dynamical mean-field theory. The nature of the pairing is found to be richer than just the Fermi surface shift responsible for the usual FFLO state. The presence of a flat band allows for changes in the particle momentum distributions at null energy cost. This facilitates formation of nontrivial superfluid phases via multiband Cooper pair formation: the momentum distribution of the spin component in the flat band deforms to mimic the Fermi surface of the other spin component residing in a dispersive band. The Fermi surface of the unpaired particles that are typical for gapless superfluids becomes deformed as well. The results highlight the profound effect of flat dispersions on Fermi surface instabilities, and provide a potential route for observing spin-imbalanced superfluidity and superconductivity.
We investigate the temperature effects in an imbalanced superfluid atomic Fermi gas. We consider a bilayer system of two-component dipolar fermionic atoms with one layer containing atoms of one component and the other layer the atoms of other component with an imbalance between the populations of the two components. This imbalance results in uniform and nonuniform superfluid phases such as phase-separated BCS, Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO), Sarma and normal Fermi liquid phases for different system parameters. Using the mean-field BCS theory together with the superfluid mass-density criterion we classify different phases in thermodynamic phase diagram. Our results indicate that for a dipolar Fermi system the Sarma phase is stable for large imbalance at finite temperature below the critical temperature, and the FFLO phase is stable for intermediate imbalance on the BCS side of a BCS-BCE crossover. The phase diagram in the temperature and population imbalance plane indicate three Lifshitz points: one corresponding to coexistance of BCS, FFLO and normal Fermi liquid phase while the other two correspond to the coexistance of the Sarma phase, FFLO phase and normal Fermi phase for dipolar interactions.
We consider ultracold imbalanced Fermi gases with strong attractive interactions, for which Cooper-pair formation plays an important role. The two-component mixtures consist either of identical fermionic atoms in two different hyperfine states, or of two different atomic species. In both cases, the number of atoms for each component is allowed to be different, leading to a spin imbalance or a polarization. In the second case, the two different species also give rise to a mass imbalance for the particles. Imbalanced Fermi mixtures play a fundamental role in condensed-matter, nuclear and astroparticle physics. Experimentally, the atomic mixtures are made strongly interacting with the use of two-channel Feshbach resonances. We start out by treating these in more detail. We review the relevant scattering theory, and apply it to the well-studied case of resonant s-wave collisions with zero angular momentum. Furthermore, we discuss the less-studied case of p-wave collisions with nonzero angular momentum, and the inhomogeneous case due to a trapping potential. Having discussed the two-body physics, we turn to the many-body physics. The pioneering experimental studies of Cooper pairing in lithium-6 mixtures with a spin imbalance were performed by Zwierlein et al. [Science 311, 492 (2006)] and Partridge et al. [Science 311, 503 (2006)]. We study the mean-field theory for the polarized Fermi mixture to obtain a qualitative understanding of these experiments. In the unitarity limit, where the scattering length of the interatomic interaction diverges, the theory gives rise to two exotic superfluid phases that are absent in the balanced mixture. These are the gapless superfluid Sarma phase and the phase-separated phase. By using renormalization group techniques to account for the effects of strong interactions, we obtain also quantitative agreement with Monte-Carlo calculations and experiments. We then generalize our knowledge of the solely spin-imbalanced mixture to the mass-imbalanced case, where in particular the mixture consisting of lithium-6 and potassium-40 is experimentally promising. We study the mean-field phase diagram for this mixture in the unitarity limit, where we not only find phase separation and Sarma superfluidity, but also a Lifshitz point. The latter signals an instability towards a supersolid phase. We also include the effects of fluctuations, which do not alter the topology of the phase diagram. However, fluctuation effects lower the critical temperatures with an experimentally relevant factor of three. Finally, we study superfluidity in a fully polarized gas of potassium-40 atoms near a p-wave Feshbach resonance. In particular, we consider coherent Josephson oscillations between the superfluid components in the two channels of the resonance, whose frequencies contain a clear signature of the quantum phase transition that occurs as a function of applied magnetic field.
The two-body loss associated with inelastic interactions between fermions plays a significant role in realistic many-body systems. Here we study a two-component non-Hermitian Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluidity with spin imbalance and two-body loss characterized by a complex-valued s-wave interaction in a square lattice. At the mean-field level, we map out the zero-temperature phase diagram and observe a dissipation-induced transition from superfluid to normal phase as well as a distinctive revival of the superfluid state in the weakly interacting regime applicable to both spin-balanced and spin-imbalanced systems. In the spin-imbalanced case, we find that the effective density of states involving weight functions reduces the regions in k space contributing to pairing, hence leading to a pronounced expansion of the normal phase on the phase diagram. Additionally, we analyze the order parameter, condensate energy, quasiparticle spectra, momentum distribution, and compressibility to characterize the presenting phases and phase transitions.
We study a two-component Fermi system with attractive interactions and different populations of the two species in a cubic lattice. For an intermediate coupling, we find a uniformly polarized superfluid which is stable down to very low temperatures. The momentum distribution of this phase closely resembles that of the Sarma phase, characterized by two Fermi surfaces. This phase is shown to be stabilized by a potential energy gain, as in a BCS superfluid, in contrast with the unpolarized Bose-Einstein condensate which is stabilized by kinetic energy. We present general arguments suggesting that preformed pairs in the unpolarized superfluid favor the stabilization of a polarized superfluid phase.
The FFLO modulated superconductor state was independently proposed by Fulde and Ferrell, and Larkin and Ovchinnikov, as a way of accommodating the excess spin in a spin-polarized superconductor. The pairs in the FFLO state have non-zero center-of-mass momentum, which can produce a periodic structure with a spatially-modulated order parameter. Although there is some evidence for FFLO pairing in certain heavy fermion compounds that are able to accommodate both magnetic and superconducting order, conclusive experimental proof remains elusive. Motivated by the search for exotic paired states, we have performed experiments with spin-imbalanced ultracold atomic Fermi gases in both 3D and 1D. We use two hyperfine levels of 6Li to emulate the spin-up and down states. The s-wave pairing interactions are controlled via a magnetically-tuned collisional (Feshbach) resonance. In 3D, we find that the gas phase separates into an evenly paired BCS-like core, surrounded by the excess spin-up atoms [1]. For the 1D experiment, a two-dimensional optical lattice was used to create an array of 1D tubes that are each filled with ∼200 atoms. The weak axial confinement again produces a phase separation, but in contrast to 3D we find a partially-polarized central core surrounded by either fully-paired or fully-polarized wings, depending on the degree of overall spin-polarization [2]. Theory predicts that the partially-polarized phase is an FFLO superfluid. We are currently trying to obtain direct evidence for FFLO pairing, which may be revealed in the pair momentum distribution found by releasing the atoms axially and allowing them to expand in time-of-flight. We are also exploring the 1D-3D dimensional crossover that occurs when the coupling between tubes is reduced.