To study how the 3P2-dominant pairing correlation in the π0-condensed phase differs from the 3P2 one in the Fermi gas, the Cooper pair problem is solved for neutrons in a well-localized spin-aligned layer. Energy gaps are smaller by a factor 2∼3 than those in the ordinary case.
The Cooper pair eigenvalue equation is solved exactly for the free-electron density of states in one, two, and three dimensions. The two-dimensional (2-D) case is essentially the original derivation of Cooper, as is the three-dimensional case if the interaction is restricted to the vicinity of the Fermi surface. The essential singularity in coupling, familiar in 2-D quantum binding in a well, and sometimes erroneously attributed to the two-dimensional character of the BCS model interaction which is nonzero only very near the Fermi surface, appears in all three cases.
We follow the evolution of fermion pairing in the dimensional crossover from three-dimensional to two-dimensional as a strongly interacting Fermi gas of ^{6}Li atoms becomes confined to a stack of two-dimensional layers formed by a one-dimensional optical lattice. Decreasing the dimensionality leads to the opening of a gap in radio-frequency spectra, even on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer side of a Feshbach resonance. The measured binding energy of fermion pairs closely follows the theoretical two-body binding energy and, in the two-dimensional limit, the zero-temperature mean-field Bose-Einstein-condensation to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover theory.
We review Cooper pairing starting from its simplest, original 1956 version of two electrons interacting above the Fermi sea of an ideal Fermi gas (IFG). The two-electron interaction assumed extensively (if not exclusively), is the attractive two-parameter Cooper, and then BCS, model interactions. Hole Cooper pairs (CPs) and electron-hole CPs are then included along with the initial electron-CPs in terms of the single-fermion Green functions implied by the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) integral equation in the ladder approximation. A purely-imaginary CP energy "instability" is recovered that is well-documented in the literature at least since the late 1950's. A novel interpretation of this instability is that an unperturbed Hamiltonian different from the IFG one first used by Cooper suffices to obtain meaningful CPs. Instead of the IFG sea, a BCS-correlated Fermi "sea" used in the BS equation interpreted as the associated unperturbed Hamiltonian leads to real CP energies (with small imaginary terms implying damping). We survey how this has been achieved in 1D, 2D and 3D, and give a more detailed treatment in 2D. A vital distinction is that the original and generalized CPs are true bosons in contrast with BCS pairs that are not ordinary bosons but rather "hard-core bosons" as they do not obey strict Bose commutation rules. Another important common element of the original or generalized CPs (particularly in 2D where ordinary Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) does not occur) is their linear dispersion relation in leading order in the total (or, center-of-mass) momentum power-series expansion of the CP energy. This theory encompasses, in principle, all empirically known superconductors including quasi-2D superconductors such as cuprates and the ET organic compounds, as well as quasi-1D ones such as the organometallic Bechgaard salts and nanotubes.
We follow the evolution of fermion pairing in the dimensional crossover from three-dimensional to twodimensional as a strongly interacting Fermi gas of 6 Li atoms becomes confined to a stack of twodimensional layers formed by a one-dimensional optical lattice.Decreasing the dimensionality leads to the opening of a gap in radio-frequency spectra, even on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer side of a Feshbach resonance.The measured binding energy of fermion pairs closely follows the theoretical two-body binding energy and, in the two-dimensional limit, the zero-temperature mean-field Bose-Einstein-condensation to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover theory.