We develop a systematic theoretical approach to incorporate the effects of a static white-noise disorder into the BCS-BEC crossover near the critical temperature (
Tc) of the superfluid transition. Starting from a functional-integral formulation in momentum-frequency space, we derive an effective thermodynamic potential that fully accounts for Gaussian fluctuations of the order-parameter field and its coupling to the disorder potential. The effective action, expanded to second order in both the disorder potential and the bosonic field, naturally involves third- and fourth-order terms arising from the logarithmic expansion near
Tc. By providing a controlled description of pairing fluctuations and disorder effects, this formalism correctly recovers the well-established BCS and BEC limits. This ensures a consistent physical foundation for analyzing the entire BCS-BEC crossover, effectively anchoring the intermediate regime between these two analytically robust endpoints. The approach applies equally to continuum and lattice systems and provides a natural framework for generalizations to multiband models.
In this paper, we have investigated the effect of weak random disorder in the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer to Bose–Einstein condensation (BCS–BEC) crossover region. The disorder is included in the mean field formalism through Nozières–Smith-Rink (NSR) theory of superconducting fluctuations. A self-consistent numerical solution of the coupled equations involving the superfluid gap parameter and density as a function of the disorder strength, albeit unaffected in the BCS phase, yields a depleted order parameter in the BEC regime and an interesting nonmonotonic behaviour of the condensate fraction in the vicinity of the unitary region, and a gradual depletion thereafter, as the pairing interaction is continuously tuned across the BCS–BEC crossover. The unitary regime thus demonstrates a robust paradigm of superfluidity even when the disorder is introduced. To support the above feature and shed light on a lingering controversial issue, we have computed the behaviour of the sound mode across the crossover that distinctly reveals a suppression of the sound velocity. We also find the Landau critical velocity that shows similar nonmonotonicity as that of the condensate fraction data, thereby supporting a stable superfluid scenario in the unitary limit.
We model fermions with an attractive interaction in an optical lattice with a single-band Hubbard model away from half-filling with on-site attraction
U and nearest neighbor hopping
t. Our goal is to understand the crossover from BCS superfluidity in the weak attraction limit to the BEC of molecules in the strong attraction limit, with particular emphasis on how this crossover in an optical lattice differs from the much better studied continuum problem. We use a large-
N theory with Sp(2N) symmetry to study the fluctuations beyond mean field theory. At T=0, we calculate across the crossover various observables, including chemical potential, gap, ground state energy, speed of sound and compressibility. The superfluid density
ns is found to have non-trivial
U/t dependence in this lattice system. We show that the transition temperature
Tc scales with the energy gap in the weak coupling limit but crosses over to a
t2/U scaling in the BEC limit, where phase fluctuations controlled by
ns determine
Tc. We also find, quite contrary to our expectations, that in the strong coupling limit, the large-
N theory gives qualitatively wrong trends for compressibility. A comparison with a simple Hartree shifted BCS theory, which takes into account both pairing and Hartree shifts, and correctly recovers the atomic limit and the right qualitative trend for compressibility, reveals that the large-
N theory on the lattice, although considers a larger number of diagrams, is in fact inferior to the simpler Hartree shifted BCS theory. The failure of the large-
N approach is explained by noting (i) the importance of Hartree shift in lattice problems, and (ii) inability of the large-
N approach to treat particle-particle and particle-hole channels at equal footing at the saddle point level.
The superfluid density is a fundamental quantity describing the response to a rotation as well as in two-fluid collisional hydrodynamics. We present extensive calculations of the superfluid density ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{s}$ in the BCS-BEC crossover regime of a uniform superfluid Fermi gas at finite temperatures. We include strong-coupling or fluctuation effects on these quantities within a Gaussian approximation. We also incorporate the same fluctuation effects into the BCS single-particle excitations described by the superfluid order parameter $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ and Fermi chemical potential $\ensuremath{\mu}$, using the Nozi\`eres--Schmitt-Rink approximation. This treatment is shown to be necessary for consistent treatment of ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{s}$ over the entire BCS-BEC crossover. We also calculate the condensate fraction
Nc as a function of the temperature, a quantity which is quite different from the superfluid density ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{s}$. We show that the mean-field expression for the condensate fraction
Nc is a good approximation even in the strong-coupling BEC regime. Our numerical results show how ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{s}$ and
Nc depend on temperature, from the weak-coupling BCS region to the BEC region of tightly bound Cooper pair molecules. In a companion paper [Phys. Rev. A 74, 063626 (2006)], we derive an equivalent expression for ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{s}$ from the thermodynamic potential, which exhibits the role of the pairing fluctuations in a more explicit manner.
We investigate the ground state properties of a disordered superfluid Fermi gas across the BCS-BEC (Bose-Einstein condensate) crossover. We show that, for weak disorder, both the depletion of the condensate fraction of pairs and the normal fluid density exhibit a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of the interaction parameter 1/k{F}a, reaching their minimum value near unitarity. We find that, moving away from the weak-coupling BCS regime, Anderson's theorem ceases to apply and the superfluid order parameter is more and more affected by the random potential.
We determine the effects of quantum fluctuations about the
T=0 mean-field solution of the BCS-BEC crossover in a dilute Fermi gas using the functional integral method. These fluctuations are described in terms of the zero-point motion of collective modes and the virtual scattering of gapped quasiparticles. We calculate their effects on various measurable properties, including chemical potential, ground-state energy, the gap, the speed of sound and the Landau critical velocity. At unitarity, we find excellent agreement with quantum Monte Carlo and experimental results. In the BCS limit, we show analytically that we obtain Fermi liquid interaction corrections to thermodynamics including the Hartree shift. In the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) limit, we show that the theory leads to an approximate description of the reduction of the scattering length for bosonic molecules and also obtain quantum depletion of the Lee-Yang form. At the end of the paper, we describe a method to include feedback of quantum fluctuations into the gap equation, and discuss the problems of self-consistent calculations in satisfying Goldstone's theorem and obtaining ultraviolet finite results at unitarity.