We investigate finite systems of N paired fermions, common in atomic nuclei, for example. These systems exhibit quantum mechanical features akin to those of superconductors. We discover, however, some specific N dependent effects that can not be attained in the thermodynamics limit of ordinary superconductivity. In particular, an important fact is uncovered: there is a strong correlation between the temperature T and the number of fermions N. A certain temperature increase ΔT produces, in thermal quantifiers (such as the entropy), quite different effects if N=4 or N=25. In fact, whether a given temperature value should be regarded as high or low can not be ascertained independent of the N value.
We investigate finite systems of N paired fermions, common in atomic nuclei, for example. These systems exhibit quantum mechanical features akin to those of superconductors. We discover, however, some specific N dependent effects that can not be attained in the thermodynamics limit of ordinary superconductivity. In particular, an important fact is uncovered: there is a strong correlation between the temperature T and the number of fermions N. A certain temperature increase ΔT produces, in thermal quantifiers (such as the entropy), quite different effects if N=4 or N=25. In fact, whether a given temperature value should be regarded as high or low can not be ascertained independent of the N value.
Collective effects are a typical nuclear feature that refers to the behavior of a group of N fermions (protons and neutrons) within the atomic nucleus. Our interest lies in light nuclei only. Thus, we consider here, using the Lipkin model, a small-N fermion system at low-temperature T and discover -collective phenomena. Our fermion-model simplicity allows one to gain insight into collective fermion behavior. We focus attention, for N<20, on several quantifiers. These include standard ones related to thermal behavior, such as entropy, and quantifiers of another kind, like quantum purity.
We study finite-temperature properties of strongly interacting fermions in the honeycomb lattice using numerical linked-cluster expansions and determinantal quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We analyze a number of thermodynamic quantities, including the entropy, the specific heat, uniform and staggered spin susceptibilities, short-range spin correlations, and the double occupancy at and away from half filling. We examine the viability of adiabatic cooling by increasing the interaction strength for homogeneous as well as for trapped systems. For the homogeneous case, this process is found to be more efficient at finite doping than at half filling. That, in turn, leads to an efficient adiabatic cooling in the presence of a trap, which, starting with even relatively high entropies, can drive the system to have a Mott insulating phase with substantial antiferromagnetic correlations.
This work scrutinizes, using statistical mechanics indicators, important traits displayed by quantum many-body systems. Our statistical mechanics quantifiers are employed, in the context of Gibbs’ canonical ensemble at temperature T. A new quantifier of this sort is also presented here. The present discussion focuses attention on the role played by the fermion number N in many-fermion dynamics, that is, N is our protagonist. We have discovered discovers particular values of N for which the thermal indicators exhibit unexpected abrupt variations. Such a fact reflects an unanticipated characteristic of fermionic dynamics.
The recently discovered universal thermodynamic behavior of dilute, strongly interacting Fermi gases also implies a universal structure in the many-body pair-correlation function at short distances, as quantified by the contact . Here, we theoretically calculate the temperature dependence of this universal contact for a Fermi gas in free space and in a harmonic trap. At high temperatures above the Fermi degeneracy temperature, T ≳ T F , we obtain a reliable non-perturbative quantum virial expansion up to third order. At low temperatures, we compare different approximate strong-coupling theories. These make different predictions, which need to be tested either by future experiments or by advanced quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We conjecture that in the universal unitarity limit, the contact or correlation decreases monotonically with increasing temperature, unless the temperature is significantly lower than the critical temperature, T ≪ T c ∼0.2 T F . We also discuss briefly how to measure the universal contact in either homogeneous or harmonically trapped Fermi gases.
In this paper, we intend to show that macroscopic entanglement is possible at high temperatures. We have analysed multipartite entanglement produced by the η-pairing mechanism, which features strongly in the fermionic lattice models of high T c superconductivity. This problem is shown to be equivalent to calculating multipartite entanglement in totally symmetric states of qubits. It is demonstrated that we can conclusively calculate the relative entropy of entanglement within any subset of qubits in the overall symmetric state. Three main results are then presented. First, the condition for superconductivity, namely existence of the off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), is dependent not on two-site entanglement but just classical correlations as the sites become more and more distant. Secondly, the entanglement that does survive in the thermodynamical limit is the entanglement of the total lattice and, at half-filling, it scales with the log of the number of sites. It is this entanglement that will exist at temperatures below the superconducting critical temperature, which can currently be as high as 160 K. Finally, it is proved that a complete mixture of symmetric states does not contain any entanglement in the macroscopic limit. On the other hand, a mixture of symmetric states possesses the same two qubit entanglement features as the pure states involved, in the sense that the mixing does not destroy entanglement for a finite number of qubits, albeit it does decrease it. Furthermore, maximal mixing of symmetric states does not destroy ODLRO and classical correlations. We discuss generalizations to the subsystems of any dimensionality (i.e. higher than spin-half).
Fermion pairing underlies collective quantum phenomena across widely different forms of matter. In extended systems such as ultracold Fermi gases, pairing is commonly understood through the BCS--BEC crossover, where the pair size evolves from large, overlapping Cooper pairs to tightly bound dimers. In finite systems such as atomic nuclei, superconducting grains and quantum dots, however, the same pairing tendency competes with confinement, shell filling and spatial inhomogeneity, making the microscopic structure of pairs much harder to access. Here, we image pair correlations in a finite, tunable system of few fermionic atoms with single-particle resolution and full counting statistics. We observe that confinement and shell structure re-organize pairing in real space: In the weakly interacting, confinement-dominated regime, closed-shell configurations suppress correlations in the high-density trap center. Pairing is mainly observed toward the low-density surface. Open-shell systems, however, support substantially stronger central pairing. Already for surprisingly small systems, increasing either interaction strength or particle number restores a locally bulk-like Cooper-pair profile in the trap center, whereas the edge retains dimer-like correlations. By resolving where pairs form and how their character changes from localized dimers to overlapping Cooper pairs, our measurements provide a microscopic view of pairing in finite fermionic matter and connect the physics of mesoscopic cold atoms to pairing phenomena in nuclei and superconducting nanostructures.