New insights into strongly interacting fermionic systems

Anonymous

Bogdan Mihaila, Andres Cardenas

We study 'the ground-state properties of the many-body system composed of spin-l/2 fermions interacting via a zero-range, infinite scattering length contact interaction.' Sometimes referred to as the George Bertsch problem, it is of particular interest in astrophysics in connection with the equation of state for neutron matter and has been revisited recently with the advent of experimental studies of the BCS to BEC crossover in ultracold fermionic atom gases. We will show that new insights into the solution to this problem are obtained in the context of a coupled-cluster (exp S) expansion approach to calculating the equation of state for dilute fermionic systems and that present state-of-the-art Monte Carlo calculations have not yet provided the definitive answer.

Lucas Madeira

M. Inguscio, Wolfgang Ketterle, Ch Salomon

The field of cold atomic gases faced a revolution in 1995 when Bose-Einstein condensation was achieved. Since then, there has been an impressive progress, both experimental and theoretical. The quest for ultra-cold Fermi gases started shortly after the 1995 discovery, and quantum degeneracy in a gas of fermionic atoms was obtained in 1999. The Pauli exclusion principle plays a crucial role in many aspects of ultra-cold Fermi gases, including inhibited interactions with applications to precision measurements, and strong correlations. The path towards strong interactions and pairing of fermions opened up with the discovery in 2003 that molecules formed by fermions near a Feshbach resonance were surprisingly stable against inelastic decay, but featured strong elastic interactions.This remarkable combination was explained by the Pauli exclusion principle and the fact that only inelastic collisions require three fermions to come close to each other. The unexpected stability of strongly interacting fermions and fermion pairs triggered most of the research which was presented at this summer school. It is remarkable foresight (or good luck) that the first steps to organize this summer school were already taken before this discovery. It speaks for the dynamics of the field how dramatically it can change course when new insight is obtained. The contributions in this volume provide a detailed coverage of the experimental techniques for the creation and study of Fermi quantum gases, as well as the theoretical foundation for understanding the properties of these novel systems.

Sebastian Will

P. D. Drummond, Hui Hu, Xia-Ji Liu

Experiments on ultra-cold atomic gases at nano-Kelvin temperatures are revolutionizing many areas of physics. Their exceptional adaptability and simplicity allows tests of many-body theory in areas long thought to be inaccessible, due to strong interactions. Ultra-cold Fermi gases are now providing new insight into the foundations of quantum theory. They are expected to exhibit a universal thermodynamic behaviour in the strongly interacting limit, independent of any microscopic details of the underlying interactions. Here, we present a systematic theoretical study of strong interacting fermions, using different field-theoretic methods and comparisons with quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Pioneering measurements have dramatically confirmed our theoretical predictions, giving the first known evidence for universal fermion thermodynamics.