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arXiv:cond-mat/0610798 · Physical Review A

Large- N expansion for unitary superfluid Fermi gases

Martin Y. Veillette, Daniel E. Sheehy, Leo Radzihovsky

Published Apr 18, 2007• 111 citations
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Abstract

We analyze strongly interacting Fermi gases in the unitary regime by considering the generalization to an arbitrary number $N$ of spin-$1∕2$ fermion flavors with $\mathrm{Sp}(2N)$ symmetry. For $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ this problem is exactly solved by the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer--Bose-Einstein condensate mean-field theory, with corrections small in the parameter $1∕N$. The large-$N$ expansion provides a systematic way to determine corrections to mean-field predictions, allowing the calculation of a variety of thermodynamic quantities at (and in proximity to) unitarity, including the energy, the pairing gap, and the upper-critical polarization (in the case of a polarized gas) for the normal to superfluid instability. For the physical case of $N=1$, among other quantities, we predict in the unitarity regime, the energy of the gas to be $\ensuremath{\xi}=0.28$ times that for the noninteracting gas and the pairing gap to be 0.52 times the Fermi energy.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.75.043614

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We analyze strongly interacting Fermi gases in the unitary regime by considering the generalization to an arbitrary number NNN of spin-1∕21∕21∕2 fermion flavors with Sp(2N)\mathrm{Sp}(2N)Sp(2N) symmetry. For N\ensuremath→\ensuremath∞N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}N\ensuremath→\ensuremath∞ this problem is exactly solved by the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer--Bose-Einstein condensate mean-field theory, with corrections small in the parameter 1∕N1∕N1∕N. The large-NNN expansion provides a systematic way to determine corrections to mean-field predictions, allowing the calculation of a variety of thermodynamic quantities at (and in proximity to) unitarity, including the energy, the pairing gap, and the upper-critical polarization (in the case of a polarized gas) for the normal to superfluid instability. For the physical case of N=1N=1N=1, among other quantities, we predict in the unitarity regime, the energy of the gas to be \ensuremathξ=0.28\ensuremath{\xi}=0.28\ensuremathξ=0.28 times that for the noninteracting gas and the pairing gap to be 0.52 times the Fermi energy.
We construct systematic expansions around four and two spatial dimensions for a Fermi gas near the unitarity limit. Near four spatial dimensions such a Fermi gas can be understood as a weakly interacting system of fermionic and bosonic degrees of freedom. To the leading and next-to-leading orders in the expansion over $ϵ=4\ensuremath{-}d$, with ddd being the dimensionality of space, we calculate the thermodynamic quantities and the fermion quasiparticle spectrum, both at unitarity and around the unitarity point. Then the phase structure of the polarized Fermi gas in the unitary regime is studied in the ϵϵϵ expansion. At unitarity the unpolarized superfluid state and a fully polarized normal state are separated by a first order phase transition. However, on the BEC side of the unitarity point, in a certain range of the two-body binding energy, these two phases are separated in the phase diagram by more exotic phases, including gapless superfluid phases with one or two Fermi surfaces and a superfluid phase with a spatially varying condensate. We also show that the unitary Fermi gas near two spatial dimensions is weakly interacting, and calculate the thermodynamic quantities and the fermion quasiparticle spectrum in the expansion over $\overline{ϵ}=d\ensuremath{-}2$.
We report results of quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the ground state of dilute Fermi gases with attractive short-range two-body interactions. The strength of the interaction is varied to study different pairing regimes which are characterized by the product of the sss-wave scattering length and the Fermi wave vector, akFa{k}_{F}akF​. We report results for the ground-state energy, the pairing gap $\ensuremath{\Delta}$, and the quasiparticle spectrum. In the weak-coupling regime, $1∕a{k}_{F}<\ensuremath{-}1$, we obtain Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid and the energy gap $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ is much smaller than the Fermi gas energy EFG{E}_{\mathrm{FG}}EFG​. When a>0a>0a>0, the interaction is strong enough to form bound molecules with energy Emol{E}_{\mathrm{mol}}Emol​. For $1∕a{k}_{F}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.5$, we find that weakly interacting composite bosons are formed in the superfluid gas with $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ and gas energy per particle approaching $\ensuremath{\mid}{E}_{\mathrm{mol}}\ensuremath{\mid}∕2$. In this region, we seem to have Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of molecules. The behavior of the energy and the gap in the BCS-to-BEC transition region, $\ensuremath{-}0.5<1∕a{k}_{F}<0.5$, is discussed.
We theoretically study the thermodynamic properties of a strongly interacting Fermi gas at the crossover from a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), by applying a recently outlined strong-coupling theory that includes pair fluctuations beyond the commonly-used many-body TTT -matrix or ladder approximation at the Gaussian level. The beyond Gaussian pair fluctuation (GPF) theory always respects the exact thermodynamic relations and recovers the Bogoliubov theory of molecules in the BEC limit with a nearly correct molecule-molecule scattering length. We show that the beyond-GPF theory predicts quantitatively accurate ground-state properties at the BEC-BCS crossover, in good agreement with the recent measurement by Horikoshi et al. in Phys. Rev. X 7, 041004 (2017). In the unitary limit with infinitely large sss -wave scattering length, the beyond-GPF theory predicts a reliable universal energy equation of state up to 0.6 TcT_cTc​ , where TcT_cTc​ is the superfluid transition temperature at unitarity. The theory predicts a Bertsch parameter ξ≃0.365\xi \simeq 0.365ξ≃0.365 at zero temperature, in good agreement with the latest quantum Monte Carlo result ξ=0.367(7)\xi = 0.367(7)ξ=0.367(7) and the latest experimental measurement ξ=0.367(9)\xi = 0.367(9)ξ=0.367(9) . We attribute the excellent and wide applicability of the beyond-GPF theory in the broken-symmetry phase at sufficiently low temperatures to the empirically useful partial re-summation of Feynman diagrams following a dimensional ϵ\epsilonϵ -expansion analysis near four dimensions ( d=4−ϵd=4-\epsilond=4−ϵ ), which gives rise to accurate predictions at the second order O(ϵ2)\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^2)O(ϵ2) . Our work indicates the possibility of further improving the strong-coupling theory of strongly interacting fermions based on the systematic inclusion of large-loop Feynman diagrams at higher orders O(ϵn)\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^n)O(ϵn) with n≥3n\ge 3n≥3 .
Strongly interacting Fermi gas systems play an important role in many areas of physics. Their systematic analytical study has been a difficult theoretical endeavour as it is outside the reach of ordinary perturbation theory. Much progress has been made with the development of the large-N expansion, where a fermion is generalized to have N (or 2N) components and the Lagrangian’s global symmetry is extended to the unitary group U(N) (or the compact symplectic group USp(2N)). The chosen symmetry group dictates the system’s properties as U(N) enhances the fermion-hole interaction channel and suppresses the fermion-fermion channel, whereas USp(2N) treats both channels equally by allowing two independent interaction terms in the Lagrangian density, the density-density interaction which enhances the fermion-hole channel and the pairing interaction which enhances the fermion-fermion channel. Literature has been either only focusing on the pairing interaction term or including both but restricting their respective coupling constants to be the same. The most general renormalizable quantum field theory (QFT) compatible with a global USp(2N)-symmetry contains both interaction terms with independent, dimensionless coupling constants. By studying such a system at zero temperature, we want to understand how the two interaction terms influence each other by independently tuning the coupling constants from the attractive to the repulsive regime. To this end, we calculate the ground state energy density to leading order in the large-N expansion in four different cases which are classified by the coupling constant regime and map out the phase diagram. We find that the density-density interaction renders the theory unstable if its coupling constant g₁ is tuned above 2π and that the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) to Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) crossover extends to 𝜇̃ /(ϵB) = −g₁/(2π) for g₁ < 2π, where ϵB is the Cooper pair binding energy in vacuum and 𝜇̃ the renormalized chemical potential. Furthermore, we find an exotic phase at the phase boundary (g₁= 2π, 𝜇̃ = −ϵB ) resulting from a flat direction in the leading-order effective potential, where the degenerate ground states span the entire BCS–BEC crossover.
Ultracold dilute atomic gases can be considered as model systems to address some pending problem in Many-Body physics that occur in condensed matter systems, nuclear physics, and astrophysics. We have developed a general method to probe with high precision the thermodynamics of locally homogeneous ultracold Bose and Fermi gases. This method allows stringent tests of recent many-body theories. For attractive spin 1/2 fermions with tunable interaction (6Li), we will show that the gas thermodynamic properties can continuously change from those of weakly interacting Cooper pairs described by BardeenCooper-Schrieffer theory to those of strongly bound molecules undergoing Bose-Einstein condensation. First, we focus on the finite-temperature Equation of State (EoS) of the unpolarized unitary gas. Surprisingly, the low-temperature properties of the strongly interacting normal phase are well described by Fermi liquid theory and we localize the superfluid phase transition. A detailed comparison with theories including Monte-Carlo calculations has revealed some surprises and the Lee-Huang-Yang corrections for low-density bosonic and fermionic superfluids are quantitatively measured for the first time. Despite orders of magnitude difference in density and temperature, our equation of state can be used to describe low density neutron matter such as the outer shell of neutron stars.
The Bose-Einstein condensate to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover in ultracold Fermi gases creates an ideal environment to enrich our knowledge of many-body systems. It is relevant to a wide range of fields from condensed matter to astrophysics. The nature of pairing in strongly interacting Fermi gases can be readily studied. This aids our understanding of related problems in high-Tc superconductors, whose mechanism is still under debate due to the large interaction parameter. Here, we calculate the dynamical properties of a normal, trapped strongly correlated Fermi gas, by developing a quantum cluster expansion. Our calculations for the single-particle spectral function agree with recent rf spectroscopy measurements, and clearly demonstrate pseudogap pairing in the strongly interacting regime.