No Arabic abstract
Spin-polarized attractive Fermi gases in one-dimensional (1D) optical lattices are expected to be remarkably good candidates for the observation of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase. We model these systems with an attractive Hubbard model with population imbalance. By means of the density-matrix renormalization-group method we compute the pairing correlations as well as the static spin and charge structure factors in the whole range from weak to strong coupling. We demonstrate that pairing correlations exhibit quasi-long range order and oscillations at the wave number expected from FFLO theory. However, we also show by numerically computing the mixed spin-charge static structure factor that charge and spin degrees of freedom appear to be coupled already for small imbalance. We discuss the consequences of this coupling for the observation of the FFLO phase, as well as for the stabilization of the quasi-long range order into long-range order by coupling many identical 1D systems, as in quasi-1D optical lattices.
The heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 is the first material, where different experimental probes show strong evidence pointing to the realization of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state. The inhomogeneous superconducting FFLO state with a periodically modulated order parameter was predicted to appear in Pauli-limited, sufficiently clean type-II superconductors already more than 40 years ago. On the other hand, CeCoIn5 is supposed to be close to a magnetic quantum critical point (QCP) showing strong antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin fluctuations (SF) at atmospheric pressure. We studied the evolution of the FFLO phase away from the influence of the strong AFM-SF by heat capacity experiments under pressure (0 GPa <= P <= 1.5 GPa, 0 T <= mu_0 H <= 14 T, and 100 mK <= T <= 4 K). Our results prove the stability of the the FFLO phase under pressure. It even expands, while the Pauli-limiting becomes weaker and the AFM-SF are suppressed. This shows the intriguing influence of the AFM-SF on the FFLO state.
Starting from the Ginzburg-Landau free energy describing the normal state to Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell (LOFF) state transition, we evaluate the free energy of seven most common lattice structures such as stripe, square, triangular,Simple Cubic (SC), Face centered Cubic (FCC),Body centered Cubic (BCC) and Quasi-crystal (QC). We find that the stripe phase which is the original LO state, is the most stable phase. This result maybe relevant to the detection of LOFF state in some heavy fermion compounds and the pairing lattice structure of fermions with unequal populations in the BCS side of Feshbach resonance in ultra-cold atoms.
The first observation of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superconducting state and a subsequent detection of the spin-dependent effective masses of quasiparticles in the CeCoIn_5 heavy fermion system are combined into a single theoretical framework. The appearance of the spin-split masses extends essentially the regime of temperatures and applied magnetic fields, in which FFLO is observable and thus is claimed to be very important for the FFLO detectability. We also stress that the quasiparticles composing Cooper pair become distinguishable in the nonzero field. The analysis is performed within the Kondo-lattice limit of the finite-U Anderson-lattice model containing both the mass renormalization and real-space pairing within a single scheme.
We propose a two-step experimental protocol to directly engineer Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) states in a cold two-component Fermi gas loaded into a quasi-one-dimensional trap. First, one uses phase imprinting to create a train of domain walls in a superfluid with equal number of $uparrow$- and $downarrow$-spins. Second, one applies a radio-frequency sweep to selectively break Cooper pairs near the domain walls and transfer the $uparrow$-spins to a third spin state which does not interact with the $uparrow$- and $downarrow$-spins. The resulting FFLO state has exactly one unpaired $downarrow$-spin in each domain wall and is stable for all values of domain-wall separation and interaction strength. We show that the protocol can be implemented with high fidelity at sufficiently strong interactions for a wide range of parameters available in present-day experimental conditions.
Coherent coupling generated by laser light between the hyperfine states of atoms, loaded in a 1D optical lattice, gives rise to the synthetic dimension system which is equivalent to a Hofstadter model in a finite strip of square lattice. An SU(M) symmetric attractive interaction in conjunction with the synthetic gauge field present in this system gives rise to unusual effects. We study the two- body problem of the system using the T-matrix formalism. We show that the two-body ground states pick up a finite momentum and can transform into two-body resonance like features in the scattering continuum with a large change in the phase shift. As a result, even for this 1D system, a critical amount of attraction is needed to form bound states. These phenomena have spectacular effects on the many body physics of the system analyzed using the numerical density matrix renormalization group technique. We show that the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) states form in the system even for a balanced gas and the FFLO momentum of the pairs scales linearly with flux. Considering suitable measures, we investigate interesting properties of these states. We also discuss a possibility of realization of a generalized interesting topological model, called the Creutz ladder.