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arXiv:2607.18007

Expansion of a free Fermi gas released from an isotropic trapping potential

J. M. Luck, P. L. Krapivsky

Published Jul 20, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We consider a system of non-interacting fermions prepared in the many-body ground state of an isotropic trapping potential in any dimension, and investigate the ballistic expansion of the fermionic cloud after the potential is suddenly released. Using semi-classical techniques, we derive the full late-time profile of the expanding cloud in the regime when the fermion number is large. We thus obtain explicit expressions for power-law potentials with arbitrary exponent $a$ and in all dimensions $d$. The momentum distribution and the spatial profile of the cloud exhibit a universal edge exponent $d/a$, thus generalizing the Wigner semi-circle law and the Thomas-Fermi distribution.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2607.18007

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We consider a system of non-interacting fermions prepared in the many-body ground state of an isotropic trapping potential in any dimension, and investigate the ballistic expansion of the fermionic cloud after the potential is suddenly released. Using semi-classical techniques, we derive the full late-time profile of the expanding cloud in the regime when the fermion number is large. We thus obtain explicit expressions for power-law potentials with arbitrary exponent aaa and in all dimensions ddd. The momentum distribution and the spatial profile of the cloud exhibit a universal edge exponent d/ad/ad/a, thus generalizing the Wigner semi-circle law and the Thomas-Fermi distribution.
Abstract We consider N non-interacting fermions prepared in the ground state of a 1D confining potential and submitted to an instantaneous quench consisting in releasing the trapping potential. We show that the quantum return probability of finding the fermions in their initial state at a later time falls off as a power law in the long-time regime, with a universal exponent depending only on N and on whether the free fermions expand over the full line or over a half-line. In both geometries, the amplitudes of this power-law decay are expressed in terms of finite determinants of moments of the one-body bound-state wavefunctions in the potential. These amplitudes are worked out explicitly for the harmonic and square-well potentials. At large fermion numbers they obey scaling laws involving the Fermi energy of the initial state. The use of the Selberg–Mehta integrals stemming from random matrix theory has been instrumental in the derivation of these results.
We analyze free expansion of a trapped one-dimensional Bose gas after a sudden release from the confining trap potential. By using the stationary phase and local density approximations, we show that the long-time asymptotic density profile and the momentum distribution of the gas are determined by the initial distribution of Bethe rapidities (quasimomenta) and hence can be obtained from the solutions to the Lieb-Liniger equations in the thermodynamic limit. For expansion from a harmonic trap, and in the limits of very weak and very strong interactions, we recover the self-similar scaling solutions known from the hydrodynamic approach. For all other power-law traps and arbitrary interaction strengths, the expansion is not self-similar and shows strong dependence of the density profile evolution on the trap anharmonicity. We also characterize dynamical fermionization of the expanding cloud in terms of correlation functions describing phase and density fluctuations.
Abstract. – We discuss the effects of collisions on the expansion of an ultracold normal Fermi gas, following the sudden removal of the confining trap. Using a Boltzmann equation approach, we calculate the time dependence of the aspect ratio and the temperature increase of the expanding atomic cloud. We find that for dilute gases and standard choices of the trap parameters the aspect ratio does not deviate significantly from the predictions of ballistic expansion. Conversely, if the trap is sufficiently elongated the thermal broadening of the density distribution can be quite large, revealing that even at zero temperature collisions are effective in a Fermi gas. The expansion of an atomic gas following the sudden removal of the confining trap is known to provide valuable information on the state of the system and on the role of interactions [1]. In particular in the superfluid phase, where the macroscopic dynamics of the gas are governed by the equations of hydrodynamics, one expects anisotropic expansion if the gas is released from an anisotropic trap. This peculiar feature, which should be contrasted with the isotropic ballistic expansion exhibited by a non interacting gas, was first discussed in [2,3] in the case
We analyze free expansion of a trapped one-dimensional Bose gas after a sudden release from the confining trap potential. By using the stationary phase and local density approximations, we show that the long-time asymptotic density profile and the momentum distribution of the gas are determined by the initial distribution of Bethe rapidities (quasimomenta) and hence can be obtained from the solutions to the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz equations. For expansion from a harmonic trap, and in the limits of very weak and very strong interactions, we recover the known scaling solutions of the hydrodynamic approach corresponding to self-similar expansion. For all other power-law traps and arbitrary interaction strengths, the expansion is not self-similar and shows strong dependence on the trap anharmonicity of the shape variation of the density profile during evolution. We also characterize dynamical fermionization of an expanding cloud in terms of its first- and second-order coherences describing phase and density fluctuations.
The momentum distribution of an expanding cloud of one-dimensional hard-core anyons is studied by an exact numerical approach, and shown to become indistinguishable from that of a noninteracting spin-polarized Fermi gas for large enough times (dynamical fermionization). We also consider the expansion of one-dimensional anyons with strongly attractive short-range interactions suddenly released from a parabolic external potential, and find that the momentum distribution approaches that of its dual system, the ideal Bose gas (dynamical bosonization). For both processes the characteristic time scales are identified, and the effect of the initial confinement is analyzed comparing the dynamics associated with both harmonic and hard-wall traps.
We show by means of an exact numerical approach that the momentum distribution of a free expanding gas of hard-core bosons on a one-dimensional lattice approaches that of noninteracting fermions, acquiring a Fermi edge. Yet there is a power-law decay of the one-particle density matrix ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{x}\ensuremath{\sim}1/\sqrt{x}$, as usual for hard-core bosons in the ground state, which accounts for a large occupation of the lowest natural orbitals for all expansion times. The fermionization of the momentum distribution function, which is not observed in equilibrium, is analyzed in detail.