We investigate magnetic properties and effects of pairing fluctuations in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer--Bose-Einstein condensation (BCS-BEC) crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas. Recently, Liu and Hu [Europhys. Lett. 75, 364 (2006)], and Parish et al. [Nat. Phys. 3, 124 (2007)], pointed out that the strong-coupling theory developed by Nozi\`eres and Schmitt-Rink (NSR), which has been extensively used to successfully clarify various physical properties of cold Fermi gases, unphysically gives negative spin susceptibility in the BCS-BEC crossover region. The same problem also exists in the ordinary non-self-consistent
T-matrix approximation. In this paper, we clarify that this serious problem comes from incomplete treatment in term of pseudogap phenomena originating from strong pairing fluctuations, as well as effects of spin fluctuations on the spin susceptibility. Including these two key issues, we construct an extended
T-matrix theory which can overcome this problem. The resulting positive spin susceptibility agrees well with the recent experiment on a
6Li Fermi gas done by Sanner et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 010402 (2011)]. We also apply our theory to a polarized Fermi gas to examine the superfluid phase transition temperature
Tc, as a function of the polarization rate. Since the spin susceptibility is an important physical quantity, especially in singlet Fermi superfluids, our results would be useful in considering how singlet pairs appear above and below
Tc in the BCS-BEC crossover regime of cold Fermi gases.
We study resonantly-paired s-wave superfluidity in a degenerate gas of two species (hyperfine states labeled by ↑, ↓) of fermionic atoms when the numbers N↑ and N↓ of the two species are unequal, i.e., the system is "polarized." We find that the continuous crossover from the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) limit of tightly-bound diatomic molecules to the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) limit of weakly correlated Cooper pairs, studied extensively at equal populations, is interrupted by a variety of distinct phenomena under an imposed population difference ΔN ≡ N↑ - N↓. Our findings are summarized by a "polarization" (ΔN) versus Feshbach-resonance detuning (δ) zero-temperature phase diagram, which exhibits regions of phase separation, a periodic FFLO superfluid, a polarized normal Fermi gas and a polarized molecular superfluid consisting of a molecular condensate and a fully polarized Fermi gas. We describe numerous experimental signatures of such phases and the transitions between them, in particular focusing on their spatial structure in the inhomogeneous environment of an atomic trap. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.