We discuss ultracold Fermi gases in two dimensions, which could be realized in a strongly confining one-dimensional optical lattice. We obtain the temperature versus effective interaction phase diagram for an s-wave superfluid and show that, below a certain critical temperature Tc, spontaneous vortex-antivortex pairs appear for all coupling strengths. In addition, we show that the evolution from weak-to-strong coupling is smooth, and that the system forms a square vortex-antivortex lattice at a lower critical temperature TM.
We discuss ultracold Fermi gases in two dimensions, which could be realized in a strongly confining one-dimensional optical lattice. We obtain the temperature versus effective interaction phase diagram for an s-wave superfluid and show that, below a certain critical temperature Tc, spontaneous vortex-antivortex pairs appear for all coupling strengths. In addition, we show that the evolution from weak-to-strong coupling is smooth, and that the system forms a square vortex-antivortex lattice at a lower critical temperature TM.
In this thesis, we discuss ultracold quantum gases both in continuum and optical lattices. For the continuum Fermi gases in BCS-BEC crossover, we present an effective field theory study on the recently discovered puzzling damping phenomena on the BCS side of the crossover. We find that in contrast to the previous proposed pair-breaking mechanism of damping, the damping process is due to the interaction between superfluid phonons and thermally excited fermionic quasi particles. Results from our effective field theory are compared quantitatively with experiments, showing a good agreement. For the ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices, we propose two novel quantum phases. Firstly, we show that a novel superconducting pairing occurs for spin-imbalanced Fermi gases with the spin up and down Fermi levels lying within the px- and s- orbital bands of a quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice. The pairs condense at a finite momentum equal to the sum of the two Fermi momenta of spin up and down fermions, and form a p-orbital condensate. The phase diagram shows that the p-orbital pair condensate occurs in a wide range of fillings. Secondly, we study instabilities of single-species fermionic atoms in the p-orbital bands in two-dimensional square optical lattices. From the nearly-perfect nesting Fermi surfaces, charge density wave and orbital density wave orderings with stripe or checkerboard patterns are found for attractive and repulsive interactions, respectively. The superconducting phase, usually expected of attractively interacting fermions, is strongly suppressed. We also use field theory to analyze the possible liquid crystal phases in our system. For bosons, we study ultracold bosonic atoms loaded in a one-dimensional optical lattice of two-fold p-orbital degeneracy at each site, and find an anti-ferro-orbital, a homogeneous px Mott insulator phase and two kinds of superfluid phases distinguished by the orbital ordering.
We consider p-wave pairing of single hyperfine state and s-wave pairing of two hyperfine states ultracold atomic gases trapped in quasi-two-dimensional optical lattices. First, we analyze superfluid properties of p-wave and s-wave symmetries in the strictly weak coupling BCS regime where we discuss the order parameter, chemical potential, critical temperature, atomic compressibility, and superfluid density as a function of filling factor for tetragonal and orthorhombic optical lattices. Second, we analyze superfluid properties of p-wave and s-wave superfluids in the evolution from the BCS to Bose-Einstein condensation regimes at low temperatures $(T\ensuremath{\approx}0)$, where we discuss the changes in the quasiparticle excitation spectrum, chemical potential, atomic compressibility, Cooper pair size, and momentum distribution as a function of filling factor and interaction strength for tetragonal and orthorhombic optical lattices.
We show how strongly interacting two-dimensional Dirac fermions can be realized with ultracold atoms in a two-dimensional optical square lattice with an experimentally realistic, inherent gauge field, which breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetries. We find remarkable phenomena in a temperature range around a tenth of the Fermi-temperature, accessible with present experimental techniques: at zero chemical potential, besides a conventional s-wave superconducting phase, unconventional superconductivity with non-local bond pairing arises. In a temperature versus doping phase diagram, the unconventional superconducting phase exhibits a dome structure, reminiscent of the phase diagram for high-temperature superconductors and heavy fermions.
The superfluidity and pairing phenomena in ultracold atomic Fermi gases have been of great interest in recent years, with multiple tunable parameters. Here we study the BCS-BEC crossover behavior of balanced two-component Fermi gases in a one-dimensional optical lattice, which is distinct from the simple three-dimensional (3D) continuum and a fully 3D lattice often found in a condensed matter system. We use a pairing fluctuation theory which includes self-consistent feedback effects at finite temperatures and find widespread pseudogap phenomena beyond the BCS regime. As a consequence of the lattice periodicity, the superfluid transition temperature Tc decreases with pairing strength in the BEC regime, where it approaches asymptotically ${T}_{\mathrm{c}}=\ensuremath{\pi}an/2m$, with a being the s-wave scattering length, and n (m) the fermion density (mass). In addition, the quasi-two dimensionality leads to fast-growing (absolute value of the) fermionic chemical potential $\ensuremath{\mu}$ and pairing gap $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$, which depends exponentially on the ratio d/a. Importantly, Tc at unitarity increases with the lattice constant d and hopping integral t. The effect of the van Hove singularity on Tc is identified. The superfluid density exhibits T3/2 power laws at low T, away from the extreme BCS limit. These predictions can be tested in future experiments.
Many-body effects on superfluidity and transition temperatures are calculated for optical lattices and uniform systems with ultracold multi-component Fermi gases. The induced interactions depend sensitively on the interactions between the multi-components and their densities. The s- and d-wave pairing gaps and critical temperatures are calculated for optical lattices at low (dilute) filling as well as near half filling to leading orders in the interaction strength with and without induced interactions. They can deviate strongly from dilute two-component systems and affect the phase diagram. In two dimensional optical lattices the induced interactions are singular at half filling and strongly affect s- and d-wave superfluidity.
A mixture of ultracold bosons and fermions placed in an optical lattice constitutes a novel kind of quantum gas, and leads to phenomena, which so far has been discussed neither in atomic physics, nor in condensed matter physics. We discuss the phase diagram at low temperatures, and in the limit of strong atom-atom interactions, and predict the existence of quantum phases that involve pairing of fermions with one or more bosons, or, respectively, bosonic holes. The resulting composite fermions may form, depending on the system parameters, a normal Fermi liquid, a density wave, a superfluid liquid, or an insulator with fermionic domains. We discuss the feasibility for observing such phases in current experiments.