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New Journal of Physics

Studies of the universal contact in a strongly interacting Fermi gas using Bragg spectroscopy

E. D. Kuhnle, Sascha Hoinka, Hui Hu, Paul Dyke, Peter Hannaford, Chris J. Vale

Published May 24, 2011• 27 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a comprehensive experimental study of Tan's universal contact parameter in a two-component ultracold Fermi gas, using Bragg spectroscopy. The contact uniquely parameterizes a number of universal properties of Fermi gases in the strongly interacting regime. It is linked to the spin-antiparallel component of the static structure factor S ↑↓ ( k ) at high momenta, which can readily be obtained via Bragg scattering. Contact depends upon the relative interaction strength 1/( k F a ) and temperature T / T F , where k F is the Fermi wave vector, a is the s-wave scattering length and T F is the Fermi temperature. We present measurements of both of these dependencies in a cloud of 6 Li atoms and compare our findings to theoretical predictions. We also compare Bragg spectroscopic methods based on measuring the energy and momentum transferred to the cloud and examine the conditions under which the energy transfer method provides improved accuracy. Our measurements of the dynamic structure factor and contact are found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions based on the quantum virial expansion.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/13/5/055010

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We present a comprehensive experimental study of Tan's universal contact parameter in a two-component ultracold Fermi gas, using Bragg spectroscopy. The contact uniquely parameterizes a number of universal properties of Fermi gases in the strongly interacting regime. It is linked to the spin-antiparallel component of the static structure factor S ↑↓ ( k ) at high momenta, which can readily be obtained via Bragg scattering. Contact depends upon the relative interaction strength 1/( k F a ) and temperature T / T F , where k F is the Fermi wave vector, a is the s-wave scattering length and T F is the Fermi temperature. We present measurements of both of these dependencies in a cloud of 6 Li atoms and compare our findings to theoretical predictions. We also compare Bragg spectroscopic methods based on measuring the energy and momentum transferred to the cloud and examine the conditions under which the energy transfer method provides improved accuracy. Our measurements of the dynamic structure factor and contact are found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions based on the quantum virial expansion.
This paper presents studies of the universal properties of strongly interacting Fermi gases using Bragg spectroscopy. We focus on pair-correlations, their relationship to the contact C introduced by Tan, and their dependence on both the momentum and temperature. We show that short-range pair correlations obey a universal law, first derived by Tan through measurements of the static structure factor, which displays a universal scaling with the ratio of the contact to the momentum C/q . Bragg spectroscopy of ultracold 6 Li atoms is employed to measure the structure factor for a wide range of momenta and interaction strengths, providing broad confirmation of this universal law. We show that calibrating our Bragg spectra using the f -sum rule leads to a dramatic improvement in the accuracy of the structure factor measurement. We also measure the temperature dependence of the contact in a unitary gas and compare our results to calculations based on a virial expansion.
The contact I, introduced by Tan, has emerged as a key parameter characterizing universal properties of strongly interacting Fermi gases. For ultracold Fermi gases near a Feshbach resonance, the contact depends upon two quantities: the interaction parameter 1/(k(F)a), where k(F) is the Fermi wave vector and a is the s-wave scattering length, and the temperature T/T(F), where T(F) is the Fermi temperature. We present the first measurements of the temperature dependence of the contact in a unitary Fermi gas using Bragg spectroscopy. The contact is seen to follow the predicted decay with temperature and shows how pair-correlations at high momentum persist well above the superfluid transition temperature.
We show that short-range pair correlations in a strongly interacting Fermi gas follow a simple universal law described by Tan's relations. This is achieved through measurements of the static structure factor which displays a universal scaling proportional to the ratio of Tan's contact to the momentum C/q. Bragg spectroscopy of ultracold 6Li atoms from a periodic optical potential is used to measure the structure factor for a wide range of momenta and interaction strengths, providing broad confirmation of this universal law. We calibrate our Bragg spectra using the f-sum rule, which is found to improve the accuracy of the structure factor measurement.
This article provides an overview of recent developments and emerging topics in the study of two-component Fermi gases using Bragg spectroscopy. Bragg scattering is achieved by exposing a gas to two intersecting laser beams with a slight frequency difference and measuring the momentum transferred to the atoms. By varying the Bragg laser detuning, it is possible to measure either the density or spin response functions which characterize the basic excitations present in the gas. Specifically, one can measure properties such as the dynamic and static structure factors, Tan’s universal contact parameter and observe signatures for the onset of pair condensation locally within a gas.
We present a high-precision determination of the universal contact parameter in a strongly interacting Fermi gas. In a trapped gas at unitarity, we find the contact to be 3.06±0.08 at a temperature of 0.08 of the Fermi temperature in a harmonic trap. The contact governs the high-momentum (short-range) properties of these systems, and this low-temperature measurement provides a new benchmark for the zero-temperature homogeneous contact. The experimental measurement utilizes Bragg spectroscopy to obtain the dynamic and static structure factors of ultracold Fermi gases at high momentum in the unitarity and molecular Bose-Einstein condensate regimes. We have also performed quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the static properties, extending from the weakly coupled BCS regime to the strongly coupled Bose-Einstein condensate case, that show agreement with experiment at the level of a few percent.
We theoretically investigate the static structure factor of an interacting Fermi gas near the BEC-BCS crossover at large momenta. Due to short-range two-body interactions, we show that the structure factor of unlike spin correlations S ↑↓ ( q ) falls off as 1/ q in a universal scaling region with large momentum ℏ q and large scattering length. The scaling coefficient is determined by the celebrated Tan's contact parameter, which links the short-range behavior of many-body systems to their universal thermodynamic properties. By implementing this structure-factor Tan relation together with the random-phase approximation and the virial expansion theory in various limiting cases, we show how to calculate S ↑↓ ( q ) at zero and finite temperatures for arbitrary interaction strengths, at momentum transfer higher than the Fermi momentum. Our results provide a way to experimentally confirm one of the Tan relations and to accurately measure the value of contact parameter.