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arXiv:2601.01790

Non-Hermitian topological superfluidity in a three-dimensional fermi gas with spin-orbit coupling

Pingcheng Zhu, Lihong Zhou, Jianxin Zhong

Published Jan 5, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The experimental advances in realizing artificial spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and non-Hermitian potentials in ultracold atomic system open a new avenue for exploring their significant roles in quantum many-body physics. Here, we investigate a non-Hermitian, two-component Fermi system in a cubic lattice with Rashba SOC and complex-valued interaction arising from two-body loss. We adopt the non-Hermitian mean field theory and map out the phase diagram at zero temperature. The interplay of dissipation and on-site interaction drives a dissipation-induced phase transition from superfluid (SF) to normal phase (N). Notably, for weak interaction strengths, this leads to a reentrance of the superfluid state. The presence of SOC significantly expands the parameter regime for both the normal phase and the metastable superfluid phase(MSF). Whereas, the Zeeman field can drive the system from a conventional superfluid into a topological superfluid phase(TSF), characterized by a nontrivial topological invariant. These results enrich our knowledge of pairing superfluidity in Fermi systems.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2601.01790

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The experimental realizations of artificial spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and non-Hermitian potentials in ultracold atoms provide a versatile platform for exploring their interplay in quantum many-body systems. Here, we investigate a two-component Fermi gas in a three-dimensional cubic lattice with Rashba SOC and a complex-valued interaction arising from two-body loss. Based on a non-Hermitian mean-field theory, this work elucidates the interplay of dissipation and SOC in the pairing behavior of Fermi gases. Dissipation not only drives a phase transition from a superfluid to a normal state and induces a reentrant superfluid but also, synergistically with SOC, significantly expands the stability regions of both the normal and metastable superfluid phases. Moreover, the introduction of a Zeeman field can drive the system into a topological superfluid phase characterized by a nontrivial topological invariant. These results thereby uncover a rich spectrum of pairing phenomena in this dissipative quantum system.
We investigate superfluid pairing in a two-dimensional Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas subject to spin-selective one-body loss. Within the non-Hermitian mean-field framework, we self- consistently solve the gap and number equations and find that moderate dissipation can significantly enhance the pairing gap, resulting in a pronounced nonmonotonic dependence on the dissipation strength. Dissipation also provides an additional control parameter for driving the system across the BCS-BEC crossover. We further analyze the quasi-particle spectrum and identify two distinct superfluid regimes characterized by one and three exceptional rings, separated by an exceptional spectral transition. Interestingly, dissipation can enhance both pairing channels while simultaneously inducing a momentum-dependent phase twist in the triplet component. These results demonstrate that spin-selective dissipation provides a versatile non-Hermitian control knob for manipulating superfluid pairing, spectral structure, and crossover physics in spin-orbit-coupled quantum gases.
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 sss-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\mathbf{k}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.
The realization of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in ultracold atoms has triggered an intensive exploring of topological superfluids in the degenerate Fermi gases based on mean-field theory, which has not yet been reported in experiments. Here, we demonstrate the topological phase transitions in the system via the numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo method. Without prior assumptions, our unbiased real-space calculation shows that spin-orbit coupling can stabilize an unconventional pairing in the weak SOC regime, in which the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov pairing coexists with the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer pairing. Furthermore, we use the jumps in the spin polarization at the time-reversal invariant momenta to qualify the topological phase transition, where we find the critical exponent deviated from the mean-field theory. Our results pave the way for the searching of unconventional pairing and topological superfluids with degenerate Fermi gases.
Abstract The equal Rashba-Dresselhaus (ERD) spin-orbit coupling, as the first type to be implemented in cold atom experiments, provides a unique platform for exploring topological quantum phases. This work investigates the ground state of a two-dimensional Fermi gas featuring both ERD coupling and a Zeeman field, mapping out its topological phase diagram throughout the BCS-BEC crossover. We classify the homogeneous superfluid phases into topologically trivial gapped or nontrivial gapless phase based on the nodal structure of the quasiparticle excitation spectrum. We reveal the evolution of topological superfluid states under various conditions by systematically characterizing the phase distribution across key parameters including the spin-orbit coupling strength, two-body binding energy, Zeeman field, and chemical potential. Our findings indicate that spin-orbit coupling enhances triplet pairing and stabilizes the gapless superfluid phase. Moreover, small binding energy, and strong Zeeman field are found to promote the emergence of the gapless phase, particularly the US-II phase identified in this work. These results elucidate the phase transition mechanisms in low-dimensional quantum systems.
We investigate the effects of attractive Hubbard interaction on two-component fermionic atoms in narrow two-dimensional (2D) energy bands that exhibit Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the presence of an applied Zeeman field. This narrow-band 2D spin-orbit-coupled attractive Fermi-Hubbard model can potentially be realized in cold-atom systems in optical lattices with artificially engineered Rashba SOC and Zeeman field. Employing a self-consistent mean-field approximation for the pairing potential, we uncover a complex phase diagram featuring various topological superfluid (TS) phases, dependent on the chemical potential and the Zeeman field. We focus on the pairing potential and the corresponding quasiparticle gap characterizing the TS phases, which are notably small for a wide-band model with quadratic dispersion near the $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$ point, as found in earlier work. We identify the parameter regimes that maximize the gap. We find that, while generally the value of the pairing potential increases with the reduction of the fermionic bandwidth, as expected for narrow- or flat-band systems, the magnitude of the topological gap characterizing the TS phases reaches a significantly improved maximum of about 10−−12.510--12.5%10−−12.5 of the interaction strength at finite values of the hopping amplitude, Rashba coupling, and Zeeman field. Our work establishes a robust operating regime for experimenting with topological superfluids in cold-atom optical lattices.