The attractive Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian is solved via the Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism to analyze the ground state phases of population imbalanced fermion mixtures in harmonically trapped two-dimensional optical lattices. In the low density limit the superfluid order parameter modulates in the radial direction towards the trap edges to accommodate the unpaired fermions that are pushed away from the trap center with a single peak in their density. However, in the high density limit while the order parameter modulates in the radial direction towards the trap center for low imbalance, it also modulates towards the trap edges with increasing imbalance until the superfluid to normal phase transition occurs beyond a critical imbalance. This leads to a single peak in the density of unpaired fermions for low and high imbalance, but leads to double peaks for intermediate imbalance.
The ground-state phase diagram of Fermi-Fermi mixtures in optical lattices is analyzed as a function of interaction strength, population imbalance, filling fraction, and tunneling parameters. It is shown that population imbalanced Fermi-Fermi mixtures reduce to strongly interacting Bose-Fermi mixtures in the molecular limit, in sharp contrast to homogeneous or harmonically trapped systems, where the resulting Bose-Fermi mixture is weakly interacting. Furthermore, insulating phases are found in optical lattices of Fermi-Fermi mixtures in addition to the standard phase-separated or coexisting superfluid--excess-fermion phases found in homogeneous systems. The insulating states can be a molecular Bose-Mott insulator (BMI), a Fermi-Pauli insulator (FPI), a phase-separated BMI-FPI mixture, or a Bose-Fermi checkerboard.
We study the ground-state properties of mixtures of strongly interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. Applying a mean-field approximation to the Hubbard model for Bose-Bose mixtures, we calculate the densities and superfluid order parameters for both species. Due to the repulsive interaction between the two species, the system exhibits phase separation. First, in the extreme limit of the zero-hopping case, we derive analytical expressions for the phase boundaries. In particular, we derive the conditions for phase separation in the Mott insulator phase. We find that the conditions for the phase separation depend on the on-site interactions as well as the occupation numbers. In particular, we show that the coexisting state appears by varying the on-site inter-species interaction. We also show the phase diagram of the finite hopping case. Second, we calculate the spatial density profile of
87Rb-
41K mixtures in the combined potential of a parabolic trap and an optical lattice using the local density approximation. We fixed the number of
87Rb and varied the number of
41K, and used the parameters estimated by experiments. We show that the phase separated
87Rb-
41K mixtures distribute like in a parabolic trap case. Furthermore, we find that phase separated mixtures distribute a nesting structure.
We study fermion pairing in a population-imbalanced mixture of
6Li atomic gas loaded in a three-dimensional lattice at very low temperatures. Using the number equation for each population, the gap equation, and the equation for the Helmholtz free energy, we determine the gap, chemical potentials, and pair-momentum as functions of polarization. These parameters define the stability regions for a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov phase, a phase separation region where Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer and normal phases coexist, a Sarma phase when the pair-momentum vanishes, and the transition to the normal phase when the gap disappears. The collective-mode energies are then calculated using a Bethe-Salpeter approach in the generalized random-phase approximation assuming that the system is well described by the single-band Hubbard model. An interesting result is that this fermionic gas has a superfluid phase revealed by rotonlike minima in the asymmetric collective-mode energy spectrum.
We study the ground-state phase diagram of population balanced and imbalanced ultracold atomic Fermi gases with a short-range attractive interaction throughout the crossover from BCS to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), in a two-dimensional (2D) optical lattice comprised of a 2D array of 1D lines. We find that the mixing of lattice and continuum dimensions, together with population imbalance, has an extraordinary effect on pairing and the superfluidity of atomic Fermi gases. In the balanced case, the superfluid ground state prevails over the majority of the phase space. However, for relatively small lattice hopping integral
t and large lattice constant
d, a pair density wave (PDW) emerges unexpectedly at intermediate coupling strength, and the nature of the in-plane and overall pairing changes from particlelike to holelike in the BCS and unitary regimes, associated with an abnormal increase in the Fermi volume with the pairing strength. In the imbalanced case, the stable polarized superfluid phase shrinks to only a small portion of the entire phase space spanned by
t,d, imbalance
p, and interaction strength
U, mainly in the bosonic regime of low
p, moderately strong pairing, relatively large
t, and small
d. Due to the Pauli exclusion between paired and excessive fermions within the confined momentum space, a PDW phase emerges and the overall pairing evolves from particlelike into holelike, as the pairing strength grows stronger in the BEC regime. In both cases, the ground-state property is largely governed by the Fermi surface topology. These findings are very different from the cases of a pure 3D continuum, a 3D lattice, or a 1D optical lattice.
We study the zero temperature ground state of a two-dimensional atomic Fermi gas with chemical potential and population imbalance in the mean-field approximation. All calculations are performed in terms of the two-body binding energy B , whose variation allows one to investigate the evolution from the BEC to the BCS regimes. By means of analytical and exact expressions we show that, similarly to what is found in three dimensions, at fixed chemical potentials, BCS is the ground state until the critical imbalance h c , after which there is a first-order phase transition to the normal state. We find that h c , the Chandrasekhar–Clogston limit of superfluidity, has the same value as in three-dimensional systems. We show that for a fixed ratio B / F , where F is the two-dimensional Fermi energy, as the density imbalance m is increased from zero, the ground state evolves from BCS to phase separation to the normal state. At the critical imbalance m c , phase separation is not supported and the normal phase is energetically preferable. The BCS–BEC crossover is discussed in balanced and imbalanced configurations. Possible pictures of what may be found experimentally in these systems are also shown. We also investigate the necessary conditions for the existence of bound states in the balanced and imbalanced normal phase.