We theoretically study a possible pairing mechanism for a two-dimensional population imbalanced Fermi gas with short-range repulsive interactions, which can be realized on the upper branch of a Feshbach resonance. We use a well-controlled renormalization-group approach, which allows an unbiased study of the instabilities of imbalanced Fermi liquid without assumption of a broken symmetry and gives a numerical calculation of the transition temperature from microscopic parameters. Our results show a leading superfluid instability in the
p-wave channel for the majority species. The corresponding mechanism is that there are effective attractive interactions for the majority species, induced by the particle-hole susceptibility of the minority species, where the mismatch of the Fermi surfaces of the two species plays an important role. We also propose an experimental protocol for detecting the
p-wave superfluidity and discuss the corresponding experimental signatures.
Renormalization group methods can be applied to the nuclear many-body problem using the approach proposed by Shankar. We start with the two-body low momentum interaction V_{low k} and use the RG flow from the particle-hole channels to calculate the full scattering amplitude in the vicinity of the Fermi surface. This is a new straightforward approach to the many-body problem which is applicable also to condensed matter systems without long-ranged interactions, such as liquid 3He. We derive the one-loop renormalization group equations for the quasiparticle interaction and scattering amplitude at zero temperature. The RG presents an elegant method to maintain all momentum scales and preserve the antisymmetry of the scattering amplitude. As a first application we solve the RG equations for neutron matter. The resulting quasiparticle interaction includes effects due to the polarization of the medium, the so called induced interaction of Babu and Brown. We present results for the Fermi liquid parameters, the equation of state of neutron matter and the 1S0 superfluid pairing gap.
We present a general method to study weak-coupling instabilities of a large class of interacting electron models in a controlled and unbiased way. Quite generally, the electron gas is unstable towards a superconducting state even in the absence of phonons, since high-energy spin fluctuations create an effective attraction between the quasi-particles. As an example, we show the occurrence of d-wave pairing in the repulsive Hubbard model in two dimensions. In one dimension or if the Fermi surface is nested, there are several competing instabilities. The required renormalization group formalism for this case is presented to lowest (one-loop) order on a most elementary level, connecting the idea of the “parquet summation” to the more modern concept of Wilson's effective action. The validity and restrictions of the one-loop approximation are discussed in detail. As a result, three different renormalization group approaches known in the literature are shown to be equivalent within the regime of applicability. We also briefly discuss the open problem of a two-dimensional Fermi system at Van Hove filling without nesting.
The stability or lack thereof of nonrelativistic fermionic systems to interactions is studied within the renormalization-group (RG) framework, in close analogy with the study of critical phenomena using ${\ensuremath{\varphi}}^{4}$ scalar field theory. A brief introduction to ${\ensuremath{\varphi}}^{4}$ theory in four dimensions and the path-integral formulation for fermions is given before turning to the problem at hand. As for the latter, the following procedure is used. First, the modes on either side of the Fermi surface within a cutoff $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ are chosen for study, in analogy with the modes near the origin in ${\ensuremath{\varphi}}^{4}$ theory, and a path integral is written to describe them. Next, an RG transformation that eliminates a part of these modes, but preserves the action of the noninteracting system, is identified. Finally the possible perturbations of this free-field fixed point are classified as relevant, irrelevant or marginal. A
d=1 warmup calculation involving a system of fermions shows how, in contrast to mean-field theory, which predicts a charge-density wave for arbitrarily weak repulsion, and superconductivity for arbitrarily weak attraction, the renormalization-group approach correctly yields a scale-invariant system (Luttinger liquid) by taking into account both instabilities. Application of the renormalization group in
d=2and3, for rotationally invariant Fermi surfaces, automatically leads to Landau's Fermi-liquid theory, which appears as a fixed point characterized by an effective mass and a Landau function
F, with the only relevant perturbations being of the superconducting (BCS) type. The functional flow equations for the BCS couplings are derived and separated into an infinite number of flows, one for each angular momentum. It is shown that similar results hold for rotationally noninvariant (but time-reversal-invariant) Fermi surfaces also, with obvious loss of rotational invariance in the parametrization of the fixed-point interactions. A study of a nested Fermi surface shows an additional relevant flow leading to charge-density-wave formation. It is pointed out that, for small $\frac{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}{{K}_{F}}$, a
N1 expansion emerges, with $N=\frac{{K}_{F}}{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$, which explains why one is able to solve the narrow-cutoff theory. The search for non-Fermi liquids in
d=2 using the RG is discussed. Bringing a variety of phenomena (Landau theory, charge-density waves, BCS instability, nesting, etc.) under the one unifying principle of the RG not only allows us to better understand and unify them, but also paves the way for generalizations and extensions. The article is pedagogical in nature and is expected to be accessible to any serious graduate student. On the other hand, its survey of the vast literature is mostly limited to the RG approach.
We derive a differential equation for the one-particle-irreducible vertex functions of interacting fermions as a function of the temperature. Formally, these equations correspond to a Wilsonian renormalization group (RG) scheme that uses the temperature as an explicit scale parameter. Our method allows us to analyze the competition between superconducting and various magnetic Fermi surface instabilities in the one-loop approximation. In particular, this includes ferromagnetic fluctuations, which are difficult to treat on an equal footing in conventional Wilsonian momentum space techniques. Applying the scheme to the two-dimensional $t\ensuremath{-}{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ Hubbard model we investigate the RG flow of the interactions at the van Hove filling with varying next-nearest-neighbor hopping ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}.$ Starting at ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}=0$ we describe the evolution of the flow to strong coupling from an antiferromagnetic nesting regime over a d-wave regime at moderate ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ to a ferromagnetic region at larger absolute values of ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}.$ Upon increasing the particle density in the latter regime the ferromagnetic tendencies are cut off and the leading instability occurs in the triplet superconducting pairing channel.
We present the formalism for a two-loop renormalization group (RG) calculation of some order-parameter susceptibilities associated with a two-dimensional (2D) flat Fermi-surface model. In this order of perturbation theory, one must take into account the self-energy effects directly in all RG flow equations. In one-loop order, our calculation reproduces the well-known results obtained previously by other RG schemes. That is, for repulsive interactions all susceptibilities diverge in the low-energy limit and the antiferromagnetic (AF) spin-density-wave correlations produce indeed the leading instability in the system. In contrast, in two-loop order, only the AF susceptibility diverges for this model. However, even this divergence takes place at a much slower rate than in the one-loop RG approach. The purpose of this paper is to show in a very simple setting how to assess the importance of two-loop quantum fluctuations in 2D interacting fermionic models. With some modifications, the present formalism can also be extended to discuss more realistic models such as the paradigmatic 2D Hubbard model.