arXiv:cond-mat/0506496 · Physical Review A
Effects of trap anisotropy on the impurity scattering regime in a Fermi gas
P. Capuzzi, Patrizia Vignolo, Monica Tosi
Abstract
We evaluate the low-lying oscillation modes and the ballistic expansion properties of a harmonically trapped gas of fermionic $^{40}\mathrm{K}$ atoms containing thermal $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ impurities as functions of the anisotropy of the trap. Numerical results are obtained by solving the Vlasov-Landau equations for the one-body phase-space distribution functions and are used to test simple scaling Ans\"atzes. Starting from the gas in a weak impurity-scattering regime inside a spherical trap, the time scales associated to motions in the axial and azimuthal directions enter into competition as the trap is deformed to an elongated cigarlike shape. This competition gives rise to coexistence of collisionless and hydrodynamic behaviors in the low-lying surface modes of the gas as well as to a dependence of the aspect ratio of the expanding cloud on the collision time.