Stable and resonant Cooper pairs

Mauricio Fortes, M. A. Solís, MANUEL DE LLANO +1 more

V.Ya. Aleshkini, D. V. Averin

Valdir C. Aguilera-Navarro, Mauricio Fortes, MANUEL DE LLANO

A Bethe–Salpeter treatment of Cooper pairs (CPs) based on an ideal Fermi gas (IFG) "sea" produces unstable CPs if holes are not ignored. Stable CPs with damping emerge when the BCS ground state replaces the IFG, and are positive-energy, finite-lifetime resonances for nonzero center-of-mass momentum with a linear dispersion leading term. Bose–Einstein condensation of such pairs may thus occur in exactly two dimensions as it cannot with quadratic dispersion.

Pieter van Wyk, Hiroyuki Tajima, Ryo Hanai +1 more

We investigate the specific heat at constant volume ${C}_{V}$ in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer--Bose-Einstein-condensate (BCS-BEC)-crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas above the superfluid phase transition temperature ${T}_{\mathrm{c}}$. Within the framework of the strong-coupling theory developed by Nozi\`eres and Schmitt-Rink, we show that this thermodynamic quantity is sensitive to the stability of preformed Cooper pairs. That is, while ${C}_{V}(T\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{T}_{\mathrm{c}})$ in the unitary regime is remarkably enhanced by metastable preformed Cooper pairs or pairing fluctuations, it is well described by that of an ideal Bose gas of long-lived stable molecules in the strong-coupling BEC regime. Using these results, we identify the region where the system may be viewed as an almost ideal Bose gas of stable pairs, as well as the pseudogap regime where the system is dominated by metastable preformed Cooper pairs, in the phase diagram of an ultracold Fermi gas with respect to the strength of a pairing interaction and the temperature. We also show that the calculated specific heat agrees with the recent experiment on a $^{6}\text{Li}$ unitary Fermi gas. Since the formation of preformed Cooper pairs is a crucial key in the BCS-BEC-crossover phenomenon, our results would be helpful in considering how fluctuating preformed Cooper pairs appear in a Fermi gas to eventually become stable as one passes through the BCS-BEC-crossover region.

David Ciudad

P.-M. Billangeon, F. Pierre, Hélène Bouchiat +1 more

We measure the high-frequency emission of a single Cooper pair transistor (SCPT) in the regime where transport is only due to tunneling of Cooper pairs. This is achieved by coupling on chip the SCPT to a superconductor-insulator-superconductor junction and by measuring the photon assisted tunneling current of quasiparticles across the junction. This technique allows a direct detection of the ac Josephson effect of the SCPT and provides evidence of Landau-Zener transitions for proper gate voltage. The emission in the regime of resonant Cooper pair tunneling is also investigated. It is interpreted in terms of transitions between charge states coupled by the Josephson effect.