Interacting Fermi gases in disordered one-dimensional lattices
Gao Xianlong, Marco Polini, B. Tanatar +1 more
Interacting two-component Fermi gases loaded in a one-dimensional (1D) lattice and subject to harmonic trapping exhibit intriguing compound phases in which fluid regions coexist with local Mott-insulator and/or band-insulator regions. Motivated by experiments on cold atoms inside disordered optical lattices, we present a theoretical study of the effects of a random potential on these ground-state phases. Within a density-functional scheme we show that disorder has two main effects: (i) it destroys the local insulating regions if it is sufficiently strong compared with the on-site atom-atom repulsion, and (ii) it induces an anomaly in the compressibility at low density from quenching of percolation.
arXiv:cond-mat/0603118•Physical Review B•Apr 19, 2006•15 citations