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arXiv:cond-mat/0604115 · Physical Review A

Conditions of low dimensionality for strongly interacting atoms under a transverse trap

J. P. Kestner, L.-M. Duan

Published Nov 7, 2006• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

For a dilute atomic gas in a strong transverse trapping potential, one normally expects that, in the ground state, the gas will populate only the lowest transverse level. We show, however, that for the strongly interacting gas under a Feshbach resonance, the ground state includes a large fraction of atoms in excited levels of the trap, even if the gas is in the dilute limit and the trap is very strong. This is because the effective atom-molecule coupling is typically enhanced to many times the trap mode spacing by an induced confinement along the untrapped dimension(s). Thus one cannot ``freeze out'' the transverse degrees of freedom except under certain conditions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.74.053606

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For a dilute atomic gas in a strong transverse trapping potential, one normally expects that, in the ground state, the gas will populate only the lowest transverse level. We show, however, that for the strongly interacting gas under a Feshbach resonance, the ground state includes a large fraction of atoms in excited levels of the trap, even if the gas is in the dilute limit and the trap is very strong. This is because the effective atom-molecule coupling is typically enhanced to many times the trap mode spacing by an induced confinement along the untrapped dimension(s). Thus one cannot ``freeze out'' the transverse degrees of freedom except under certain conditions.
We derive one-dimensional effective Hamiltonians for spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases confined in quasi-one-dimensional trapping potentials. For an energy regime around the two-body bound-state energy, the effective Hamiltonian takes a two-channel form, where the populations in transverse excited levels are described by dressed molecules in the closed channel. For an energy regime slightly above the continuum threshold, the effective Hamiltonian takes a single-channel form, where low-energy physics is governed by the one-dimensional interacting strength determined by three-dimensional scattering length and transverse confinement. We further discuss the effect of spin-orbit coupling and effective Zeeman field on the position of confinement-induced resonances and show that these resonances can be understood as Feshbach resonances between the threshold of the transverse ground state and the two-body bound state associated with the transverse excited states. We expect that the shift of confinement-induced resonances can be observed under present experimental technology at attainable temperatures.
In this dissertation, we develop simple single-band effective Hamiltonians for a fermionic gas across a Feshbach resonance in both a quasi-low-dimensional optical trap and a three-dimensional optical lattice. The proper theoretical description of these systems is nontrivial due to the multiband nature of the dimers which form in the ground state of the strongly interacting gas. For the quasi-low-dimensional case, we show that the ground state of the gas has a significant population in the excited levels of the transverse trap. Hence, the effective low-dimensional (single-band) Hamiltonian must include the effects of this real population frozen in many transverse modes. We accomplish this through the definition of a "dressed molecule" state which incorporates the excited fraction. For the three-dimensional case, a valid single-band lattice model at first seems impossible for strong interactions. However, we find effective single-band lattice models that remain valid by subtly accounting for the nontrivial structure of the on-site dimer. We perform explicit numerical calculations for two fermions in a double-well to demonstrate the range of validity of the models and their parameter values. In the process of investigation leading to these models we find other interesting results such as a ground state level crossing for three fermions in a single well and a set of Feshbach resonances induced by anharmonicity of the optical potential. The ultracold neutral atom experiments related to the work presented within provide a flexible and well-controlled tool to observe aspects of quantum physics not easily accessible or controllable in other systems. The combination of optical lattice trapping techniques with the ability to manipulate the interactions via a Feshbach resonance allows for the study of novel strongly correlated physics. This work addresses an important and fundamentally interesting issue for these systems and serves as a proper starting point for further theoretical studies in conjunction with experiment.
Ultracold Fermi gases subject to tight transverse confinement offer a highly controllable setting to study the two-dimensional (2D) BCS to Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless superfluid crossover. Achieving the 2D regime requires confining particles to their transverse ground state which presents challenges in interacting systems. Here, we establish the conditions for an interacting Fermi gas to display 2D kinematics. Transverse excitations are detected by measuring the transverse expansion rate which displays a sudden increase when the atom number exceeds a critical value N2D{N}_{2D}N2D​ signifying a density driven departure from 2D kinematics. For weak interactions N2D{N}_{2D}N2D​ is set by the aspect ratio of the trap. Close to a Feshbach resonance, however, the stronger interactions reduce N2D{N}_{2D}N2D​ and excitations appear at lower density.
We generated a one-dimensional quantum gas confined in an elongated optical dipole trap instead of 2D optical lattices. The sample, comprising thousands of atoms, spans several hundred micrometers and allows for independent control of temperature and chemical potential using Feshbach resonance. This allows us to directly observe and investigate the spatial distribution and associated excitation of 1D quantum gas without any ensemble averaging. In this system, we observed that the dimension of 1D gas will be popped up into 3D due to strong interaction without changing any trapping confinement. During the dimensional crossover, we found that increasing the scattering length leads to the failure of 1D theories, including 1D mean field, Yang-Yang equation, and 1D hydrodynamics. Specifically, the modified Yang-Yang equation effectively describes this 1D system at temperatures beyond the 1D threshold, but it does not account for the effects of stronger interactions. Meanwhile, we observe two possible quantized plateaus of breathing-mode oscillation frequencies predicted by 1D and 3D hydrodynamics, corresponding to weak and strong interactions, respectively. There is also a universal crossover connecting two different regimes where both hydrodynamics fail.
We investigate the properties of a spin-orbit coupled quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gas with tunable sss-wave interaction between the two spin species. By analyzing the two-body bound state, we find that the population of the excited states in the tightly confined axial direction can be significant when the two-body binding energy becomes comparable to or exceeds the axial confinement. Since the Rashba spin-orbit coupling that we study here tends to enhance the two-body binding energy, this effect can become prominent at unitarity or even on the BCS side of the Feshbach resonance. To study the impact of these excited modes along the third dimension, we adopt an effective two-dimensional Hamiltonian in the form of a two-channel model, where the dressed molecules in the closed channel consist of the conventional Feshbach molecules as well as the excited states occupation in the axial direction. With properly renormalized interactions between atoms and dressed molecules, we find that both the density distribution and the phase structure in the trap can be significantly modified near a wide Feshbach resonance. In particular, the stability region of the topological superfluid phase is increased. Our findings provide a proper description for a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gas under spin-orbit coupling, and are helpful for the experimental search for the topological superfluid phase in ultracold Fermi gases.