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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Fermionic Superfluidity with Imbalanced Spin Populations

Martin W. Zwierlein, André Schirotzek, Christian H. Schunck, Yong-il Shin, Wolfgang Ketterle

Published Jun 1, 2007• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have observed fermionic superfluidity with population imbalance and the Clogston limit of superfluidity in an ultracold Fermi mixture [Zwierlein et al,2006]. Importantly, this demonstrated that in the case of population imbalance, there is no longer a smooth crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate of molecules to a BCS type superfluid. Instead, as the pairing strength is varied, phase transitions occur between the superfluid and the normal state.

DOI
10.1109/cleoe-iqec.2007.4386708

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We have observed fermionic superfluidity with population imbalance and the Clogston limit of superfluidity in an ultracold Fermi mixture [Zwierlein et al,2006]. Importantly, this demonstrated that in the case of population imbalance, there is no longer a smooth crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate of molecules to a BCS type superfluid. Instead, as the pairing strength is varied, phase transitions occur between the superfluid and the normal state.
We established superfluidity in a two-state mixture of ultracold fermionic atoms with imbalanced state populations. This study relates to the long-standing debate about the nature of the superfluid state in Fermi systems. Indicators for superfluidity were condensates of fermion pairs and vortices in rotating clouds. For strong interactions, near a Feshbach resonance, superfluidity was observed for a broad range of population imbalances. We mapped out the superfluid regime as a function of interaction strength and population imbalance and characterized the quantum phase transition to the normal state, known as the Pauli limit of superfluidity.
In our recent experiments at MIT, superfluidity has been observed in a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas. These systems constitute a novel form of matter with model character: One can vary the temperature, density and dimensionality, the number of “spin up” versus “spin down” fermions, and, most remarkably, the interactions can be precisely controlled over an enormous range. This allows to study the crossover of a Bose-Einstein condensate of tightly bound molecules to a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluid of long-range Cooper pairs. Superfluidity in this crossover regime is demonstrated by setting the gas under rotation and observing ordered lattices of quantized vortices [1]. Thanks to its strong interactions, the gas is a high-temperature superfluid: Scaled to the density of electrons in a metal, superfluidity would occur already far above room temperature. A new regime is entered when the number of spin up versus spin down atoms is imbalanced. In this case, not every spin up atom can find a spin down partner. The ground state of such a system has been under debate for over 40 years. We observe the breakdown of superfluidity at a critical imbalance, the Chandrasekhar-Clogston limit [2]. The superfluid gives way to an intriguing, strongly-interacting Fermi gas with unequal spin populations [3, 4].
This thesis focuses on the analysis of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) \nto Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) evolution in ultracold superfluid \nFermi gases when the interaction between atoms is varied. The tuning of \nattractive interactions permits the ground state of the system to evolve from a weak \nfermion attraction BCS limit of loosely bound and largely overlapping Cooper pairs \nto a strong fermion attraction limit of tightly bound small bosonic molecules \nwhich undergo BEC. \nThis evolution is accompanied by anomalous behavior of many superfluid \nproperties, and reveals several quantum phase transitions. \nThis thesis has two parts: \nIn the first part, I analyze zero and nonzero orbital angular momentum \npairing effects, and show that a quantum phase transition occurs for \nnonzero angular momentum pairing, unlike the sss-wave case where the BCS \nto BEC evolution is just a crossover. \nIn the second part, I analyze two-species fermion mixtures with mass and \npopulation imbalance in continuum, trap and lattice models. In contrast with \nthe crossover physics found in the mass and population balanced mixtures, \nI demonstrate the existence of phase transitions between normal and \nsuperfluid phases, as well as phase separation between superfluid (paired) \nand normal (excess) fermions in imbalanced mixtures as a function of scattering \nparameter and mass and population imbalance.
We study the zero temperature ground state of a two-dimensional atomic Fermi gas with chemical potential and population imbalance in the mean-field approximation. All calculations are performed in terms of the two-body binding energy B , whose variation allows one to investigate the evolution from the BEC to the BCS regimes. By means of analytical and exact expressions we show that, similarly to what is found in three dimensions, at fixed chemical potentials, BCS is the ground state until the critical imbalance h c , after which there is a first-order phase transition to the normal state. We find that h c , the Chandrasekhar–Clogston limit of superfluidity, has the same value as in three-dimensional systems. We show that for a fixed ratio B / F , where F is the two-dimensional Fermi energy, as the density imbalance m is increased from zero, the ground state evolves from BCS to phase separation to the normal state. At the critical imbalance m c , phase separation is not supported and the normal phase is energetically preferable. The BCS–BEC crossover is discussed in balanced and imbalanced configurations. Possible pictures of what may be found experimentally in these systems are also shown. We also investigate the necessary conditions for the existence of bound states in the balanced and imbalanced normal phase.
We used radio-frequency spectroscopy to study pairing in the normal and superfluid phases of a strongly interacting Fermi gas with imbalanced spin populations. At high spin imbalances, the system does not become superfluid even at zero temperature. In this normal phase, full pairing of the minority atoms was observed. Hence, mismatched Fermi surfaces do not prevent pairing but can quench the superfluid state, thus realizing a system of fermion pairs that do not condense even at the lowest temperature.
We investigate the phase diagram and the BCS-BEC crossover of a homogeneous three-component ultracold Fermi gas with a U(3)-invariant attractive interaction. We show that the system at sufficiently low temperatures exhibits population imbalance as well as fermionic pairing. We describe the crossover in this system, connecting the weakly interacting BCS regime of the partially population-imbalanced fermion pairing state and the BEC limit with three weakly interacting species of molecules, including pairing fluctuations within a ttt-matrix calculation of the particle self-energies.