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arXiv:2606.26225

The odd fermion at the edge: odd-even staggering in the trapped, unitary Fermi gas

Silas R. Beane, Domenico Orlando, Susanne Reffert

Published Jun 24, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the odd-even staggering in the harmonically-trapped unitary Fermi gas at large particle-number charge $Q$. Using both a large-$N$ BdG description and a complementary large-charge EFT method, we show that for odd particle number the extra fermion forms an edge-localized quasiparticle near the Thomas-Fermi surface rather than a bulk excitation. In the edge limit, the microscopic BdG problem reduces to a universal coupled Airy system whose lowest positive eigenvalue fixes the leading odd-even splitting energy, $χ\,ξ^{1/6}(24Q)^{1/9}\,\hbarω+ \cdots$ where $ξ$ is the Bertsch parameter, and $χ$ is a universal edge coefficient. The associated EFT describes a fermionic mode confined to the boundary and coupled to the superfluid Goldstone field, reproducing the same $Q$ scaling while introducing a dependence on two low-energy constants. Finally, we numerically compute the spectrum and confirm the predicted scaling and localization properties.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2606.26225

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We investigate the odd-even staggering in the harmonically-trapped unitary Fermi gas at large particle-number charge QQQ. Using both a large-NNN BdG description and a complementary large-charge EFT method, we show that for odd particle number the extra fermion forms an edge-localized quasiparticle near the Thomas-Fermi surface rather than a bulk excitation. In the edge limit, the microscopic BdG problem reduces to a universal coupled Airy system whose lowest positive eigenvalue fixes the leading odd-even splitting energy, χ ξ1/6(24Q)1/9 ℏω+⋯χ\,ξ^{1/6}(24Q)^{1/9}\,\hbarω+ \cdotsχξ1/6(24Q)1/9ℏω+⋯ where ξξξ is the Bertsch parameter, and χχχ is a universal edge coefficient. The associated EFT describes a fermionic mode confined to the boundary and coupled to the superfluid Goldstone field, reproducing the same QQQ scaling while introducing a dependence on two low-energy constants. Finally, we numerically compute the spectrum and confirm the predicted scaling and localization properties.
A bstract We study the unitary Fermi gas in a harmonic trapping potential starting from a microscopic theory in the limit of large charge and large number of fermion flavors N . In this regime, we present an algorithmic procedure for extracting data from perturbation theory, order-by-order, without the need for other assumptions. We perform a gradient expansion in the interior of the particle cloud, sufficiently far from the cloud edge where the particle density drops rapidly to zero. In this latter region we present the first microscopic computation characterizing the contribution of the edge terms. The microscopic theory reproduces the predictions of the superfluid eft , including the action, the form of the gap equation, and the energy of the system in a harmonic trap (which maps, via the non-relativistic state-operator correspondence, to the scaling dimension of the lowest operator of charge Q ). We additionally give the Wilsonian coefficients at leading order in N up to nnlo in the large-charge expansion.
We study the unitary Fermi gas in a harmonic trapping potential starting from a microscopic theory in the limit of large charge and large number of fermion flavors N. In this regime, we present an algorithmic procedure for extracting data from perturbation theory, order-by-order, without the need for other assumptions. We perform a gradient expansion in the interior of the particle cloud, sufficiently far from the cloud edge where the particle density drops rapidly to zero. In this latter region we present the first microscopic computation characterizing the contribution of the edge terms. The microscopic theory reproduces the predictions of the superfluid EFT, including the action, the form of the gap equation, and the energy of the system in a harmonic trap (which maps, via the non-relativistic state-operator correspondence, to the scaling dimension of the lowest operator of charge Q). We additionally give the Wilsonian coefficients at leading order in N up to NNLO in the large-charge expansion.
We determine the energy density $\ensuremath{\xi}(3∕5)n{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}_{F}$ and the gradient correction $\ensuremath{\lambda}{\ensuremath{\hbar}}^{2}{(\mathbf{\ensuremath{\nabla}}n)}^{2}∕(8mn)$ of the extended Thomas-Fermi (ETF) density functional, where nnn is the number density and ${\ensuremath{\epsilon}}_{F}$ is the Fermi energy, for a trapped two-component Fermi gas with infinite scattering length (unitary Fermi gas) on the basis of recent diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) calculations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 233201 (2007)]. In particular we find that $\ensuremath{\xi}=0.455$ and $\ensuremath{\lambda}=0.13$ give the best fit of the DMC data with an even number NNN of particles. We also study the odd-even splitting $\ensuremath{\gamma}{N}^{1∕9}\ensuremath{\hbar}\ensuremath{\omega}$ of the ground-state energy for the unitary gas in a harmonic trap of frequency $\ensuremath{\omega}$ determining the constant $\ensuremath{\gamma}$. Finally we investigate the effect of the gradient term in the time-dependent ETF model by introducing generalized Galilei-invariant hydrodynamics equations.
We study the distribution of particle number in extended subsystems of a one-dimensional noninteracting Fermi gas confined in a potential well at zero temperature. Universal features are identified in the scaled bulk and edge regions of the trapped gas where the full counting statistics are given by the corresponding limits of the eigenvalue statistics in Gaussian unitary random matrix ensembles. The universal limiting behavior is confirmed by the bulk and edge scaling of the particle number fluctuations and the entanglement entropy.
We extend and clarify the large-charge expansion of the conformal dimension ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{Q}$ of the lowest operator of charge QQQ in nonrelativistic conformal field theories using the state-operator correspondence. The latter requires coupling the theory to an external harmonic trap that confines the particles to a spherical cloud, at the edge of which the effective theory breaks down and leads to divergences. Only recently has this issue been overcome by constructing appropriate counterterms at the edge of the cloud [S. Hellerman and I. Swanson, arXiv:2010.07967]. In this paper, we extend these results by systematically analyzing the degree of divergence of operators in the effective action and show that there always exist appropriate edge counterterms that make the final contributions to ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{Q}$ finite. On the other side of the correspondence, this also provides new corrections to the Thomas-Fermi approximation of the unitary Fermi gas, and we comment on their relevance for ultracold atom physics.
We investigate the ground-state properties of trapped fermion systems described by the Hubbard model with an external confining potential. We discuss the universal behaviors of systems in different regimes: from few particles, i.e., in dilute regimes, to the trap thermodynamic limit. The asymptotic trap-size (TS) dependence in the dilute regime (increasing the trap size $\ensuremath{\ell}$ keeping the particle number NNN fixed) is described by a universal TS scaling controlled by the dilute fixed point associated with the metal-to-vacuum quantum transition. This scaling behavior is numerically checked by DMRG simulations of the one-dimensional (1D) Hubbard model. In particular, the particle density and its correlations show crossovers among different regimes: for strongly repulsive interactions they approach those of a spinless Fermi gas, for weak interactions those of a free Fermi gas, and for strongly attractive interactions they match those of a gas of hard-core bosonic molecules. The large-NNN limit keeping the ratio $N/\ensuremath{\ell}$ fixed corresponds to a 1D trap thermodynamic limit. We address issues related to the accuracy of the local density approximation (LDA). We show that the particle density approaches its LDA in the large-$\ensuremath{\ell}$ limit. When the trapped system is in the metallic phase, corrections at finite $\ensuremath{\ell}$ are $O({\ensuremath{\ell}}^{\ensuremath{-}1})$ and oscillating around the center of the trap. They become significantly larger at the boundary of the fermion cloud, where they get suppressed as $O({\ensuremath{\ell}}^{\ensuremath{-}1/3})$ only. This anomalous behavior arises from the nontrivial scaling at the metal-to-vacuum transition occurring at the boundaries of the fermion cloud.