Pairs and loners in a polarized fermi gas

Randall G. Hulet

C. Luciuk, Stefan Trotzky, Scott Beattie +4 more

Yuki Endo, Daisuke Inotani, Yoji Ohashi

Bereket Berhane, T. A. B. Kennedy

S. Y. Chang

The equation of state of the partially polarized two component Fermi gas at zero temperature in the unitary limit is computed by the ab initio auxiliary field Monte Carlo method. From this, we obtain the critical ratio of the chemical potentials ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}∕{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}$ at the phase transitions. The value of ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}∕{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}$ at the transition between the fully paired superfluid and the partially polarized phases is 0.11, while the critical value at the phase transition between the partially polarized phase and the fully polarized normal fluid is $\ensuremath{-}0.59$. We also determine the radial boundaries of the phase transitions of the Fermi gas in the harmonic trap as a function of the total polarization. We find that beyond the critical polarization 0.65, the fully paired superfluid core disappears in the trapped Fermi gas.

Guthrie B. Partridge, Wenhui Li, Ramsey I. Kamar +2 more

We report the observation of pairing in a gas of atomic fermions with unequal numbers of two components. Beyond a critical polarization, the gas separates into a phase that is consistent with a superfluid paired core surrounded by a shell of normal unpaired fermions. The critical polarization diminishes with decreasing attractive interaction. For near-zero polarization, we measured the parameter beta = -0.54 +/- 0.05, describing the universal energy of a strongly interacting paired Fermi gas, and found good agreement with recent theory. These results are relevant to predictions of exotic new phases of quark matter and of strongly magnetized superconductors.