We investigate the superfluid phase transition in a gas of Fermi atoms loaded on a three-dimensional optical lattice. When the lattice potential is strong, this system can be well described by an attractive Hubbard model. In this model, we calculate the superfluid phase transition temperature
Tc, including both superfluid and (spin and charge) density fluctuations within the self-consistent
t-matrix theory and fluctuation exchange approximation, respectively. Since we treat these fluctuations in a consistent manner, our theory satisfies the required particle-hole symmetry over the entire BCS--Bose-Einstein-condensation (BEC) crossover region. We show that charge density fluctuations compete against superfluid fluctuations near the half-filling, leading to the suppression of
Tc. As a result, the maximum
Tc is obtained away from the half-filling. Since the strong density fluctuations originate from the nesting property of the Fermi surface at the half-filling (which is absent in a uniform gas with no lattice potential), our results would be useful in considering lattice effects on strong-coupling superfluidity.
The work by Soares et al. [Phys. Rev. B 65, 174506 (2002)] investigates the BCS to Bose-Einstein crossover for d-wave pairing in the two-dimensional attractive Hubbard model. Contrary to their claims, we found that a nonpairing region does not exist in the density vs coupling phase diagram. The gap parameter at
T=0, as obtained by solving analytically as well as numerically the BCS equations, is in fact finite for any nonzero density and coupling, even in the weak-coupling regime.
We investigate the two-dimensional attractive Hubbard model with quantum Monte Carlo techniques to reveal the crossover from a BCS-type superconductivity in the weak-coupling regime to a superconductivity properly described by a Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of local, preformed pairs. The crossover from BCS to BEC is particularly well exposed in the temperature dependence of both the spin susceptibility and the double occupancy, as well as by the appearance of a pseudogap in the density of states far above
Tc. These features are also mirrored in the shape of the specific-heat peak around
Tc, the separation of the temperature regimes where pair formation and their condensation occur, and in the transfer of spectral weight from the single-particle excitation branch to a pair band in the normal state. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.