Vortices and solitons in ultracold fermionic gases

Peter Scherpelz, Karmela Padavić, Adam Rançon +3 more

Lawrence W. Cheuk

D. J. Frantzeskakis, P. G. Kevrekidis, Nick P. Proukakis

Tomasz Karpiuk, Mirosław Brewczyk, Kazimierz Rza̧żewski

We investigate the possibilities for the generation of solitons and vortices in a degenerate gas of neutral fermionic atoms. In analogy with the already experimentally demonstrated technique applied to a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate we propose the phase engineering of a Fermi gas as a practical route to excited states with solitons and vortices. We stress that solitons and vortices appear even in a non-interacting fermionic gas. For solitons, in a system with a sufficiently large number of fermions and appropriate trap configuration, the Pauli blocking acts as the interaction between particles.

Piotr Magierski, Andrea Barresi, Andrzej Makowski +2 more

Abstract Superfluid dilute neutron matter and ultracold gas, close to the unitary regime, exhibit several similarities. Therefore, to a certain extent, fermionic ultracold gases may serve as emulators of dilute neutron matter, which forms the inner crust of neutron stars and is not directly accessed experimentally. Quantum vortices are one of the most significant properties of neutron superfluid, essential for comprehending neutron stars’ dynamics. The structure and dynamics of quantum vortices as a function of pairing correlations’ strength are being investigated experimentally and theoretically in ultracold gases. Certain aspects of these studies are relevant to neutron stars. We provide an overview of the characteristics of quantum vortices in s-wave-type fermionic and electrically neutral superfluids. The main focus is on the dynamics of fermionic vortices and their intrinsic structure.

Tarik Yefsah, Ariel Sommer, Mark Ku +4 more