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arXiv:cond-mat/0702314 · Physical Review Letters

Normal State of Highly Polarized Fermi Gases: Simple Many-Body Approaches

R. Combescot, Alessio Recati, C. Lobo, Frédéric Chevy

Published May 1, 2007• 276 citations
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Abstract

We consider the problem of a single downward arrow atom in the presence of a Fermi sea of upward arrow atoms, in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. We calculate the chemical potential and the effective mass of the downward arrow atom using two simple approaches: a many-body variational wave function and a T-matrix approximation. These two methods lead to the same results and are in good agreement with existing quantum Monte Carlo calculations performed at unitarity and, in one dimension, with the known exact solution. Surprisingly, our results suggest that, even at unitarity, the effect of interactions is fairly weak and can be accurately described using single particle-hole excitations. We also consider the case of unequal masses.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.98.180402

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We consider the problem of a single downward arrow atom in the presence of a Fermi sea of upward arrow atoms, in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. We calculate the chemical potential and the effective mass of the downward arrow atom using two simple approaches: a many-body variational wave function and a T-matrix approximation. These two methods lead to the same results and are in good agreement with existing quantum Monte Carlo calculations performed at unitarity and, in one dimension, with the known exact solution. Surprisingly, our results suggest that, even at unitarity, the effect of interactions is fairly weak and can be accurately described using single particle-hole excitations. We also consider the case of unequal masses.
We study the Fermi gas at unitarity and at T=0 by assuming that, at high polarizations, it is a normal Fermi liquid composed of weakly interacting quasiparticles associated with the minority spin atoms. With a quantum Monte Carlo approach we calculate their effective mass and binding energy, as well as the full equation of state of the normal phase as a function of the concentration x=n downward arrow/n upward arrow of minority atoms. We predict a first order phase transition from normal to superfluid at x(c)=0.44 corresponding, in the presence of harmonic trapping, to a critical polarization P(c)=(N upward arrow - N downward arrow/(N upward arrow + N downward arrow)=77%. We calculate the radii and the density profiles in the trap and predict that the frequency of the spin dipole mode will be increased by a factor of 1.23 due to interactions.
We present a full many-body analysis of the problem of a single ↓ atom resonantly interacting with a Fermi sea of ↑ atoms. A series of successive approximations permits us to clarify the quite mysterious agreement between Monte Carlo results and approximate calculations taking only into account single particle-hole excitations. We show that it results from a nearly perfect destructive interference of the contributions of states with more than one particle-hole pair. Our treatment provides, at the same time, an essentially exact solution to this problem.
We consider a single atom within a Fermi sea of atoms. We elucidate by a full many-body analysis the quite mysterious agreement between Monte Carlo results and approximate calculations taking only into account single particle-hole excitations. It results from a nearly perfect destructive interference of the contributions of states with more than one particle-hole pair. This is linked to the remarkable efficiency of the expansion in powers of hole wave vectors, the lowest order leading to perfect interference. Going up to two particle-hole pairs gives an essentially perfect agreement with known exact results. Hence our treatment amounts to an exact solution of this problem.
We consider the problem of a single particle interacting with NNN identical fermions, at zero temperature and in one dimension. We calculate the binding energy as well as the effective mass of the single particle. We use an approximate method developed in the three-dimensional case, where the Hilbert space for the excited states of the NNN fermions is restricted to have at most two particle-hole pairs. When the mass of the single particle is equal to the fermion mass, we find excellent agreement with the exact results of McGuire. When the mass of the single particle is infinite, we solve exactly the problem and find again excellent agreement between approximate results and exact ones. This overall agreement in one dimension gives a strong validation for the approximate method applied in three dimensions. Moreover it shows that our approximate treatment is excellent for the one-dimensional problem in the general case with respect to the mass of the single particle.
We present an analytical treatment of a single ↓-atom within a Fermi sea of ↑-atoms, when the interaction is strong enough to produce a bound state, dressed by the Fermi sea. Our method makes use of a diagrammatic analysis, with the involved diagrams taking only into account at most two particle-hole pairs excitations. The agreement with existing Monte Carlo results is excellent. In the BEC limit our equation reduces exactly to the Skorniakov and Ter-Martirosian equation. We present results for ↑- and ↓-atoms with different masses, which is of interest for experiments in progress.
We investigate the highly polarized limit of a two-dimensional Fermi gas, where we effectively have a single spin-down impurity atom immersed in a spin-up Fermi sea. By constructing variational wave functions for the impurity, we map out the ground state phase diagram as a function of mass ratio ${m}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}/{m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$ and interaction strength. In particular, we determine when it is favorable for the dressed impurity (polaron) to bind particles from the Fermi sea to form a dimer, trimer, or even larger clusters. Similarly to three dimensions, we find that the Fermi sea favors the trimer state so that it exists for ${m}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}/{m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$ less than the critical mass ratio for trimer formation in the vacuum. We also find a region where dimers have finite momentum in the ground state, a scenario that corresponds to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov superfluid state in the limit of large spin imbalance. For equal masses (${m}_{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}={m}_{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}$), we compute rigorous bounds on the polaron-dimer transition, and we show that the polaron energy and residue is well captured by the variational approach, with the former quantity being in good agreement with experiment. When there is a finite density of impurities, we find that this polaron-dimer transition is preempted by a first-order superfluid-normal transition at zero temperature, but it remains an open question what happens at finite temperature.