Fermions and Bosons

Robert Roth

The structure of trapped binary mixtures of bosonic and fermionic atoms at zero temperature is studied using a modified Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the bosons which self-consistently includes the mean-field interaction generated by the fermionic cloud. The density of the fermionic component is described within the Thomas-Fermi approximation. The influence of the boson-boson and the boson-fermion s-wave interaction on the density profiles and the stability of the mixture is investigated systematically. Critical particle numbers for the mean-field collapse caused either by attractive boson-boson or by attractive boson-fermion interactions and for the onset of spatial component separation are discussed. It is shown that the interplay between the boson-boson and the boson-fermion interaction generates a rich and complex phase diagram. Finally, the specific properties and prospects of the boson-fermion mixtures available in present experiments are addressed.

Philippe A. Martin, FRANÇOIS ROTHEN

Kyoko Shirasaki, Eiji Nakano, Hiroyuki Yabu

We investigate the mechanical instability toward density collapse and the transition temperature of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in the weakly coupled boson-fermion many-body mixture of single-component boson and fermion gases, in the case of the repulsive boson-boson and attractive boson-fermion interactions; no fermion-fermion interaction is assumed to be originated from the Pauli exclusion because of the diluteness of the mixture. The mechanical instability occurs in the bosonic gas where the induced boson-boson attraction mediated by the fermion polarization overcomes the boson-boson repulsive interaction at low temperatures. We calculate the onset temperature of the mechanical instability and the BEC transition temperature for the interaction strength and the boson-fermion number ratio. We also discuss the relation between the mechanical instability and the BEC transition using a diagrammatic method.

Ji-Guo Wang, Ju-Kui Xue

In this paper, we investigate the quantum coherence of Bose–Fermi mixtures of ultracold dipolar particles trapped in a three-site Bose–Fermi–Hubbard model. We show that the interplay between the boson–boson on-site interaction, boson–fermion on-site interaction, and boson–fermion inter-site dipole–dipole interaction (DDI) results in interesting coherence characters. When boson–boson on-site interaction is present, the resonance character of coherence against both boson–fermion DDI and boson–fermion on-site interaction emerges, the coherence of the system can be enhanced at certain values of boson–fermion on-site interaction and boson–fermion DDI. DDI of fermion–fermion affects the coherence weak and the phase coherence decreases monotonically for all the values of fermion–fermion DDI. The obtained coherent characters are further confirmed within the variational analyzing of the ground state energy.

Anthony F. J. Levi