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SciPost Physics Proceedings

Virial expansion coefficients in the unitary Fermi gas

Shimpei Endo

Published Feb 27, 2020• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Virial expansion is widely used in cold atoms to analyze high temperature strongly correlated many-body systems. As the n-th order virial expansion coefficient can be accurately obtained by exactly solving up to n-body problems, the virial expansion offers a few-body approach to study strongly correlated many-body problems. In particular, the virial expansion has successfully been applied to unitary Fermi gas. We review recent progress of the virial expansion studies in the unitary Fermi gas, in particular the fourth order virial coefficient.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphysproc.3.049

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Virial expansion is widely used in cold atoms to analyze high temperature strongly correlated many-body systems. As the n-th order virial expansion coefficient can be accurately obtained by exactly solving up to n-body problems, the virial expansion offers a few-body approach to study strongly correlated many-body problems. In particular, the virial expansion has successfully been applied to unitary Fermi gas. We review recent progress of the virial expansion studies in the unitary Fermi gas, in particular the fourth order virial coefficient.
We briefly review current research progress in the field of strongly correlated atomic Fermi gases. A deep understanding of strongly correlated quantum gases is plagued by the lack of either exact solutions or a controllable small interaction parameter. In this work, we present a systematic virial expansion method to study the high-temperature thermodynamics of a strongly correlated Fermi gas,where the controllable parameter is given by the fugacity,exp (μkBT),with μ being the chemical potential. A practical way is proposed to obtain the expansion coefficients for both homogeneous and harmonically trapped Fermi gases. We calculate, for the first time accurately, the third-order virial coefficient. The resulting equation of states at high temperatures is compared with a recent thermodynamic measurement and with Monte Carlo simulations.
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Quantum virial expansion provides an ideal tool to investigate the high-temperature properties of a strongly correlated Fermi gas. Here, we construct the virial expansion in the presence of spin-population imbalance. Up to the third order, we calculate the high-temperature free energy of a unitary Fermi gas as a function of spin imbalance, with infinitely large attractive or repulsive interactions. In the latter repulsive case, we show that there is no itinerant ferromagnetism when quantum virial expansion is applicable. We therefore estimate an upper bound for the ferromagnetic transition temperature Tc{T}_{c}Tc​. For a harmonically trapped Fermi gas at unitarity, we find that (Tc)upper<TF({T}_{c}){}_{\mathrm{upper}}<{T}_{F}(Tc​)upper​<TF​, where TF{T}_{F}TF​ is the Fermi temperature at the center of the trap. Our result for the high-temperature equations of state may confront future high-precision thermodynamic measurements.
In the current era of precision quantum many-body physics, one of the most scrutinized systems is the unitary limit of the nonrelativistic spin-1/2 Fermi gas, due to its simplicity and relevance for atomic, condensed matter, and nuclear physics. The thermodynamics of this strongly correlated system is determined by universal functions which, at high temperatures, are governed by universal virial coefficients b_{n} that capture the effects of the n-body system on the many-body dynamics. Currently, b_{2} and b_{3} are well understood, but the situation is less clear for b_{4}, and no predictions have been made for b_{5}. To answer these open questions, we implement a nonperturbative analytic approach based on the Trotter-Suzuki factorization of the imaginary-time evolution operator, using progressively finer temporal lattice spacings. By means of these factorizations and automated algebra codes, we obtain the interaction-induced change Δb_{n} from weak coupling to unitarity. At unitarity, we find that Δb_{3}=-0.356(4) in agreement with previous results, Δb_{4}=0.062(2), which is in agreement with all previous theoretical estimates but at odds with experimental determinations, and Δb_{5}=0.078(6), which is a prediction. We show the impact of those answers on the density equation of state and Tan contact, and trace their origin back to their polarized and unpolarized components.
Recent breakthroughs in the creation of ultracold atomic gases in the laboratory have ushered in major changes in physical science. Many novel experiments are now possible, with an unprecedented control of interaction, geometry and purity. Quantum many-body theory is facing severe challenges in quantitatively understanding new experimental results. Here, we review some recently developed theoretical techniques that provide successful predictions for density response of a strongly correlated atomic Fermi gas. These include the strong-coupling random-phase approximation theory, hightemperature quantum virial expansion, and asymptotically exact Tan relations applicable at large momentum.
By developing a quantum virial expansion theory, we quantitatively calculate the dynamic density response function of a trapped strongly interacting Fermi gas at high temperatures near unitarity. A clear transition from atomic to molecular responses is identified in the spectra when crossing from the BCS to BEC regimes, in qualitative agreement with recent Bragg spectroscopy observations. Our virial expansion method provides a promising way to solve the challenging strong-coupling problems and is applicable to other dynamical properties of strongly correlated Fermi gases.