Pairing of fermionic atoms in a strongly interacting quantum gas

Wolfgang Ketterle

Jelena Stajic

Quantum Gases Cold atomic gases are extremely flexible systems; the ability to tune interactions between fermionic atoms can, for example, cause the gas to undergo a crossover from weakly interacting fermions to weakly interacting bosons via a strongly interacting unitary regime. Murthy et al. studied this crossover in a gas of fermions confined to two dimensions. The formation of atomic pairs occurred at much higher temperatures in the unitary regime than previously thought. Science , this issue p. [452][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aan5950

Puneet A. Murthy, M. Neidig, Ralf Klemt +7 more

The nature of the normal phase of strongly correlated fermionic systems is an outstanding question in quantum many-body physics. We used spatially resolved radio-frequency spectroscopy to measure pairing energy of fermions across a wide range of temperatures and interaction strengths in a two-dimensional gas of ultracold fermionic atoms. We observed many-body pairing at temperatures far above the critical temperature for superfluidity. In the strongly interacting regime, the pairing energy in the normal phase considerably exceeds the intrinsic two-body binding energy of the system and shows a clear dependence on local density. This implies that pairing in this regime is driven by many-body correlations, rather than two-body physics. Our findings show that pairing correlations in strongly interacting two-dimensional fermionic systems are remarkably robust against thermal fluctuations.

Rudolf Grimm

M. Bartenstein, A. Altmeyer, S. Riedl +5 more

The paper gives an overview of the recent developments in the field of ultracold fermionic quantum gases. In particular, results obtained on an ultracold spin-mixture of /sup 6/Li atoms in a series of experiments performed in Innsbruck is presented . Bose-Einstein condensation of strongly bound atom pairs (molecules) , the reversible crossover to a degenerate Fermi gas, measurements of collective excitation modes, and spectroscopic observation of pairing in a strongly interacting Fermi gas of atoms are also discussed. The experimental results provide strong evidence for superfluidity.

Christian H. Schunck, Yong-il Shin, André Schirotzek +2 more