Collective excitations in the ground state of a two-dimensional attractive Fermi gas
Sergei V. Traven
The spectrum of collective (pair) excitations in the ground state of a dilute twodimensional (2D) attractive Fermi-gas is studied within the functional integral formalism. The linearized equations for the fluctuations about the non-trivial saddle point are analyzed for all coupling regimes, which are characterized by the ratio ε 0 /ε F , where ε 0 is the two-fermion binding energy and ε F is the Fermi energy. The approximation takes into account propagation of the fluctuations and their interaction with the condensate. In the strong-coupling, or ‘;Bosegas’, regime (ε 0 /ε F > 1) the spectrum is continuous and has the Bogolubov form, but in the weak-coupling limit (ε 0 /ε F «1) there are two types of excitations (different from the two-fermion scattering states): (i) long-wavelength sound-like excitations with the cut-off at momentum q c ≃ l/ξ 0 (where ξ 0 is the Cooper pair size), and (ii) pair excitations with q ≃ (8 m μ) ½ , where μ is the chemical potential and m is the fermion mass. The crossover between weakand strong-coupling behavior of the excitation spectrum is found to occur at the value of the coupling parameter ε 0 /ε F ≃¼. Introduction Since the discovery of high- T c superconductivity there has been growing interest in studying 2D Fermi gases with attractive interaction, especially in the crossover regime, when the pair size ξ 0 is of the order of the interparticle distance. The importance of such a model, which can be regarded as a semiphenomenological model of a 2D superconductor, is highlighted by experimental evidence that the high- T c superconductors, most of which have a layered structure, have a short coherence length, so that k F ξ 0 ≃1, where k F is the Fermi momentum.
Cambridge University Press eBooks•Sep 7, 1995•0 citations