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Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Center-of-mass p-wave fermionic superfluidity

Zixu Zhang, Hsiang-Hsuan Hung, Chiu Man Ho, Erhai Zhao, W. Vincent Liu

Published Oct 13, 2009• 0 citations
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Abstract

We show that an interesting of pairing occurs for spin-imbalanced Fermi gases under a specific experimental condition---the spin up and spin down Fermi levels lying within the $p_x$ and $s$ orbital bands of an optical lattice, respectively. The pairs condense at a finite momentum equal to the sum of the two Fermi momenta of spin up and spin down fermions and form a $p$-orbital pair condensate. This $2k_F$ momentum dependence has been seen before in the spin- and charge- density waves, but it differs from the usual $p$-wave superfluids such as $^3$He, where the orbital symmetry refers to the relative motion within each pair. Our conclusion is based on the density matrix renormalization group analysis for the one-dimensional (1D) system and mean-field theory for the quasi-1D system. The phase diagram of the quasi-1D system is calculated, showing that the $p$-orbital pair condensate occurs in a wide range of fillings. In the strongly attractive limit, the system realizes an unconventional BEC beyond Feynman's no-node theorem. The possible experimental signatures of this phase in molecule projection experiment are discussed.

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We show that an interesting of pairing occurs for spin-imbalanced Fermi gases under a specific experimental condition---the spin up and spin down Fermi levels lying within the pxp_xpx​ and sss orbital bands of an optical lattice, respectively. The pairs condense at a finite momentum equal to the sum of the two Fermi momenta of spin up and spin down fermions and form a ppp-orbital pair condensate. This 2kF2k_F2kF​ momentum dependence has been seen before in the spin- and charge- density waves, but it differs from the usual ppp-wave superfluids such as 3^33He, where the orbital symmetry refers to the relative motion within each pair. Our conclusion is based on the density matrix renormalization group analysis for the one-dimensional (1D) system and mean-field theory for the quasi-1D system. The phase diagram of the quasi-1D system is calculated, showing that the ppp-orbital pair condensate occurs in a wide range of fillings. In the strongly attractive limit, the system realizes an unconventional BEC beyond Feynman's no-node theorem. The possible experimental signatures of this phase in molecule projection experiment are discussed.
We show that an interesting kind of pairing occurs for spin-imbalanced Fermi gases under a specific experimental condition---the spin up and spin down Fermi levels lying within the px{p}_{x}px​ and sss orbital bands of an optical lattice, respectively. The pairs condense at a finite momentum equal to the sum of the two Fermi momenta of spin up and spin down fermions and form a ppp-orbital pair condensate. This 2kF2{k}_{F}2kF​ momentum dependence has been seen before in spin- and charge-density waves, but it differs from the usual ppp-wave superfluids such as 3He^{3}\mathrm{He}3He, where the orbital symmetry refers to the relative motion within each pair. Our conclusion is based on the density matrix renormalization group analysis for the one-dimensional (1D) system and mean-field theory for the quasi-1D system. The phase diagram of the quasi-1D system is calculated, showing that the ppp-orbital pair condensate occurs in a wide range of fillings. In the strongly attractive limit, the system realizes an unconventional BEC beyond Feynman's no-node theorem. The possible experimental signatures of this phase in molecule projection experiment are discussed.
In this thesis, we discuss ultracold quantum gases both in continuum and optical lattices. For the continuum Fermi gases in BCS-BEC crossover, we present an effective field theory study on the recently discovered puzzling damping phenomena on the BCS side of the crossover. We find that in contrast to the previous proposed pair-breaking mechanism of damping, the damping process is due to the interaction between superfluid phonons and thermally excited fermionic quasi particles. Results from our effective field theory are compared quantitatively with experiments, showing a good agreement. For the ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices, we propose two novel quantum phases. Firstly, we show that a novel superconducting pairing occurs for spin-imbalanced Fermi gases with the spin up and down Fermi levels lying within the px- and s- orbital bands of a quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice. The pairs condense at a finite momentum equal to the sum of the two Fermi momenta of spin up and down fermions, and form a p-orbital condensate. The phase diagram shows that the p-orbital pair condensate occurs in a wide range of fillings. Secondly, we study instabilities of single-species fermionic atoms in the p-orbital bands in two-dimensional square optical lattices. From the nearly-perfect nesting Fermi surfaces, charge density wave and orbital density wave orderings with stripe or checkerboard patterns are found for attractive and repulsive interactions, respectively. The superconducting phase, usually expected of attractively interacting fermions, is strongly suppressed. We also use field theory to analyze the possible liquid crystal phases in our system. For bosons, we study ultracold bosonic atoms loaded in a one-dimensional optical lattice of two-fold p-orbital degeneracy at each site, and find an anti-ferro-orbital, a homogeneous px Mott insulator phase and two kinds of superfluid phases distinguished by the orbital ordering.
We investigate many-body phase diagrams of atomic boson-fermion mixtures loaded in the two-dimensional optical lattice. Bosons mediate an attractive, finite-range interaction between fermions, leading to fermion pairing phases of different orbital symmetries. Specifically, we show that by properly tuning atomic and lattice parameters it is possible to create superfluids with sss-, ppp-, and ddd-wave pairing symmetry as well as spin and charge density wave phases. These phases and their stability are analyzed within the mean-field approximation for systems of $^{40}\mathrm{K}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ and $^{40}\mathrm{K}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{23}\mathrm{Na}$ mixtures. For the experimentally accessible regime of parameters, superfluids with unconventional fermion pairing have transition temperature around a percent of the Fermi energy.
We propose an experimental protocol to study ppp-wave superfluidity in a spin-polarized cold Fermi gas tuned by an sss-wave Feshbach resonance. A crucial ingredient is to add a quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice and tune the fillings of two spins to the sss and ppp band, respectively. The pairing order parameter is confirmed to inherit ppp-wave symmetry in its center-of-mass motion. We find that it can further develop into a state of unexpected $\ensuremath{\pi}$-phase modulation in a broad parameter regime. Experimental signatures are predicted in the momentum distributions, density of states, and spatial densities for a realistic experimental setup with a shallow trap. The $\ensuremath{\pi}$-phase ppp-wave superfluid is reminiscent of the $\ensuremath{\pi}$ state in superconductor-ferromagnet heterostructures but differs in symmetry and physical origin. The spatially varying phases of the superfluid gap provide an approach to synthetic magnetic fields for neutral atoms. It would represent another example of ppp-wave pairing, first discovered in 3He^{3}\mathrm{He}3He liquids.
We study the pairing states in a largely imbalanced two-component Fermi gas loaded in an anisotropic two-dimensional optical lattice, where the spin-up and spin-down fermions are filled to the s- and p x -orbital bands, respectively. We show that owing to the relative inversion of the band structures of the s and p x orbitals, the system favors pairing between two fermions on the same side of the Brillouin zone, leading to a large stable regime for states with a finite center-of-mass momentum, i.e., the Fulde–Ferrell–Larkin–Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state. In particular, when two Fermi surfaces are close in momentum space, a nesting effect stabilizes a special type of π-FFLO phase with a spatial modulation of π along the easily tunneled x direction. We map out the zero-temperature phase diagrams within the mean-field approach for various aspect ratios within the two-dimensional plane and calculate the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) transition temperatures T BKT for different phases.
We study instabilities of single-species fermionic atoms in the ppp-orbital bands in two-dimensional optical lattices at noninteger filling against interactions. Charge density wave and orbital density wave orders with stripe or checkerboard patterns are found for attractive and repulsive interactions, respectively. The superfluid phase, usually expected of attractively interacting fermions, is strongly suppressed. We also use field theory to analyze the possible phase transitions from orbital stripe order to liquid-crystal phases and obtain the phase diagram. The condition of nearly-perfect Fermi-surface nesting, which is key to the above results, is shown robustly independent of fermion fillings in such ppp-orbital systems, and the $(2{k}_{F},\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2{k}_{F})$ momentum of density wave oscillation is highly tunable. Such remarkable features show the promise of making those exotic orbital phases, which are of broad interest in condensed-matter physics, experimentally realizable with optical lattice gases.