Recently it has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated that a spin-orbit coupled multi-component gas in 1d lattice can be viewed as spinless gas in a synthetic 2d lattice with a magnetic flux. In this letter we consider interaction effect of such a Fermi gas, and propose signatures in charge pumping experiment, which can be easily realized in this setting. Using 1/3 filling of the lowest 2d band as an example, in strongly interacting regime, we show that the charge pumping value gradually approaches a universal fractional value for large spin component and low filling of 1d lattice, indicating a fractional quantum Hall type behavior; while the charge pumping value is zero if the 1d lattice filling is commensurate, indicating a Mott insulator behavior. The charge-density-wave order is also discussed.
In this letter we present a coherent picture for the evolution of Higgs mode in both neutral and charged $s$-wave fermion superfluids, as the strength of attractive interaction between fermions increases from the BCS to the BEC regime. In the case of neutral fermionic superfluid, such as ultracold fermions, the Higgs mode is pushed to higher energy while at the same time, gradually loses its spectral weight as interaction strength increases toward the BEC regime, because the system is further tuned away from Lorentz invariance. On the other hand, when damping is taken into account, Higgs mode is significantly broadened due to coupling to phase mode in the whole BEC-BCS crossover. In the charged case of electron superconductor, the Anderson-Higgs mechanism gaps out the phase mode and suppresses the coupling between the Higgs and the phase modes, and consequently, stabilizes the Higgs mode.
We study the two-body and three-body bound states in ultracold atomic mixtures with one of the atoms subjected to an isotropic spin-orbit (SO) coupling. We consider a system of two identical fermions interacting with one SO coupled atom. It is found that there can exist two types of three-body bound states, Efimov trimers and universal trimers. The Efimov trimers are energetically less favored by the SO coupling, which will finally merge into the atom-dimer threshold as increasing the SO coupling strength. Nevertheless, these trimers exhibit a new kind of discrete scaling law incorporating the SO coupling effect. On the other hand, the universal trimers are more favored by the SO coupling. They can be induced at negative s-wave scattering lengths and with smaller mass ratios than those without SO coupling. These results are obtained by both the Born-Oppenheimer approximation and exact solutions from three-body equations.
In this letter, we investigate the fluctuation effects on the transport properties of unitary Fermi gases in the vicinity of the superfluid transition temperature $T_c$. Based on the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau formalism of the BEC-BCS crossover, we investigate both the residual resistivity below $T_c$ induced by phase slips and the paraconductivity above $T_c$ due to pair fluctuations. These two effects have been well studied in the weak coupling BCS superconductor, and here we generalize them to the unitary regime of ultracold Fermi gases. We find that while the residual resistivity below $T_c$ increases as one approaches the unitary limit, consistent with recent experiments, the paraconductivity exhibits non-monotonic behavior. Our results can be verified with the recently developed transport apparatus using mesoscopic channels.
This review focuses on recent developments on studying synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling in ultracold atomic gases. Two types of SO coupling are discussed. One is Raman process induced coupling between spin and motion along one of the spatial directions, and the other is Rashba SO coupling. We emphasize their common features in both single-particle and two-body physics and their consequences in many-body physics. For instance, single particle ground state degeneracy leads to novel features of superfluidity and richer phase diagram; increased low-energy density-of-state enhances interaction effects; the absence of Galilean invariance and spin-momentum locking give rise to intriguing behaviors of superfluid critical velocity and novel quantum dynamics; and mixing of two-body singlet and triplet states yields novel fermion pairing structure and topological superfluids. With these examples, we show that investigating SO coupling in cold atom systems can enrich our understanding of basic phenomena such as superfluidity, provide a good platform for simulating condensed matter states such as topological superfluids, and more importantly, result in novel quantum systems such as SO coupled unitary Fermi gas or high spin quantum gases. Finally we also point out major challenges and possible future directions.
In this letter we address the issue how synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling can strongly affect three-body physics in ultracold atomic gases. We consider a system which consists of three fermionic atoms, including two spinless heavy atoms and one spin-1/2 light atom subjected to an isotropic SO coupling. We find that SO coupling can induce universal three-body bound states with negative s-wave scattering length at a smaller mass ratio, where no trimer bound state can exist if in the absence of SO coupling. The energies of these trimers are independent of high-energy cutoff, and therefore they are universal ones. Moreover, the resulting atom-dimer resonance can be effectively controlled by SO coupling strength. Our results can be applied to systems like ${}^6$Li and ${}^{40}$K mixture.
It is known from the solution of the two-body problem that an anisotropic dipolar interaction can give rise to s-wave scattering resonances, which are named as dipolar interaction induced resonaces (DIIR). In this letter, we study zero-temperature many-body physics of a two-component Fermi gas across a DIIR. In the low-density regime, it is very striking that the resulting pairing order parameter is a nearly isotropic singlet pairing and the physics can be well described by an s-wave resonant interaction potential with finite range corrections, despite of the anisotropic nature of dipolar interaction. The pairing energy is as strong as a unitary Fermi gas nearby a magnetic Feshbach resonance. In the high density regime, the anisotropic effect plays an important role. We find phase transitions from singlet pairing to a state with mixed singlet and triplet pairing, and then from mixed pairing to pure triplet pairing. The state with mixed pairing spontaneously breaks the time-reversal symmetry.
We address the phase of a highly polarized Fermi gas across a narrow Feshbach resonance starting from the problem of a single down spin fermion immersed in a Fermi sea of up spins. Both polaron and pairing states are considered using the variational wave function approach, and we find that the polaron to pairing transition will take place at the BCS side of the resonance, strongly in contrast to a wide resonance where the transition is located at the BEC side. For pairing phase, we find out the critical strength of repulsive interaction between pairs above which the mixture of pairs and fermions will not phase separate. Therefore, nearby a narrow resonance, it is quite likely that magnetism can coexist with s-wave BCS superfluidity at large Zeeman field, which is a remarkable property absent in conventional BCS superconductors (or fermion pair superfluids).
We show that s-wave scattering resonances induced by dipolar interactions in a polar molecular gas have a universal large and positive effective range, which is very different from Feshbach resonances realized in cold atoms before, where the effective range is either negligible or negative. Such a difference has important consequence in many-body physics. At high temperature regime, a positive effective range gives rise to stronger repulsive interaction energy for positive scattering length, and weaker attractive interaction energy for negative scattering length. While at low-temperatures, we study polaron problem formed by single impurity molecule, and we find that the polaron binding energy increases at the BEC side and decreases at the BCS side. All these effects are in opposite to narrow Feshbach resonances where the effective range is negative.
We study the two-body problem with a spatially modulated interaction potential using a two-channel model, in which the inter-channel coupling is provided by an optical standing wave and its strength modulates periodically in space. As the modulation amplitudes increases, there will appear a sequence of bound states. Part of them will cause divergence of the effective scattering length, defined through the phase shift in the asymptotic behavior of scattering states. We also discuss how the local scattering length, defined through short-range behavior of scattering states, modulates spatially in different regimes. These results provide a theoretical guideline for new control technique in cold atom toolbox, in particular, for alkali-earth-(like) atoms where the inelastic loss is small.
