We present the simplest nuclear energy density functional (NEDF) to date, determined by only 4 significant phenomenological parameters, yet capable of fitting measured nuclear masses with better accuracy than the Bethe-Weizsacker mass formula, while
also describing density structures (charge radii, neutron skins etc.) and time-dependent phenomena (induced fission, giant resonances, low energy nuclear collisions, etc.). The 4 significant parameters are necessary to describe bulk nuclear properties (binding energies and charge radii); an additional 2 to 3 parameters have little influence on the bulk nuclear properties, but allow independent control of the density dependence of the symmetry energy and isovector excitations, in particular the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule. This Hohenberg-Kohn-style of density functional theory successfully realizes Weizsackers ideas and provides a computationally tractable model for a variety of static nuclear properties and dynamics, from finite nuclei to neutron stars, where it will also provide a new insight into the physics of the r-process, nucleosynthesis, and neutron star crust structure. This new NEDF clearly separates the bulk geometric properties - volume, surface, symmetry, and Coulomb energies which amount to 8MeV per nucleon or up to 2000MeV per nucleus for heavy nuclei - from finer details related to shell effects, pairing, isospin breaking, etc. which contribute at most a few MeV for the entire nucleus. Thus it provides a systematic framework for organizing various contributions to the NEDF. Measured and calculated physical observables - symmetry and saturation properties, the neutron matter equation of state, and the frequency of giant dipole resonances - lead directly to new terms not considered in current NEDF parameterizations.
The unitary Fermi gas (UFG) offers an unique opportunity to study quantum turbulence both experimentally and theoretically in a strongly interacting fermionic superfluid. It yields to accurate and controlled experiments, and admits the only dynamical
microscopic description via time-dependent density functional theory (DFT) - apart from dilute bosonic gases - of the crossing and reconnection of superfluid vortex lines conjectured by Feynman in 1955 to be at the origin of quantum turbulence in superfluids at zero temperature. We demonstrate how various vortex configurations can be generated by using well established experimental techniques: laser stirring and phase imprinting. New imagining techniques demonstrated by the MIT group [Ku et al. arXiv:1402.7052] should be able to directly visualize these crossings and reconnections in greater detail than performed so far in liquid helium. We demonstrate the critical role played by the geometry of the trap in the formation and dynamics of a vortex in the UFG and how laser stirring and phase imprint can be used to create vortex tangles with clear signatures of the onset of quantum turbulence.
We present a simple Hamiltonian description of the dynamics of a quantized vortex ring in a trapped superfluid, compare this description with dynamical simulations, and characterize the dependence of the dynamics of the shape of the trap.
We present a comparison between simulated dynamics of the unitary fermion gas using the superfluid local density approximation (SLDA) and a simplified bosonic model, the extended Thomas Fermi (ETF) with a unitary equation of state. Small amplitude fl
uctuations have similar dynamics in both theories for frequencies far below the pair breaking threshold and wave vectors much smaller than the Fermi momentum, and the low frequency linear responses match well for surprisingly large wave vectors, even up to the Fermi momentum. For non-linear dynamics such as vortex generation, the ETF provides a semi-quantitative description of SLDA dynamics as long as the fluctuations do not have significant power near the pair breaking threshold, otherwise the dynamics of the ETF cannot be trusted. Nonlinearities in the ETF tends to generate high-frequency fluctuations, and with no normal component to remove this energy from the superfluid, features like vortex lattices cannot relax and crystallize as they do in the SLDA. We present a heuristic diagnostic for validating the reliability of ETF dynamics by considering the approximate conservation of square of the gap: $int|Delta|^2$.
In a recent article, Yefsah et al. [Nature 499, 426 (2013)] report the observation of an unusual excitation in an elongated harmonically trapped unitary Fermi gas. After phase imprinting a domain wall, they observe oscillations almost an order of mag
nitude slower than predicted by any theory of domain walls which they interpret as a heavy soliton of inertial mass some 200 times larger than the free fermion mass or 50 times larger than expected for a domain wall. We present compelling evidence that this soliton is instead a quantized vortex ring by showing that the main aspects of the experiment can be naturally explained within the framework of time-dependent superfluid DFT.
We introduce a type of quantum dissipation -- local quantum friction -- by adding to the Hamiltonian a local potential that breaks time-reversal invariance so as to cool the system. Unlike the Kossakowski-Lindblad master equation, local quantum frict
ion directly effects unitary evolution of the wavefunctions rather than the density matrix: it may thus be used to cool fermionic many-body systems with thousands of wavefunctions that must remain orthogonal. In addition to providing an efficient way to simulate quantum dissipation and non-equilibrium dynamics, local quantum friction coupled with adiabatic state preparation significantly speeds up many-body simulations, making the solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation significantly simpler than the solution of its stationary counterpart.
We present an efficient and general method to compute vortex-pinning interactions - which arise in neutron stars, superconductors, and trapped cold atoms - at arbitrary separations using real-time dynamics. This method overcomes uncertainties associa
ted with matter redistribution by the vortex position and the related choice of ensemble that plague the typical approach of comparing energy differences between stationary pinned and unpinned configurations: uncertainties that prevent agreement in the literature on the sign and magnitude of the vortex-nucleus interaction in the crust of neutron stars. We demonstrate and validate the method with Gross-Pitaevskii-like equations for the unitary Fermi gas, and demonstrate how the technique of adiabatic state preparation with time-dependent simulation can be used to calculate vortex-pinning interactions in fermionic systems such as the vortex-nucleus interaction in the crust of neutron stars.
We present strong theoretical evidence that a Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LOFF/FFLO) pairing phase is favoured over the homogeneous superfluid and normal phases in three-dimensional unitary Fermi systems. Using a Density Functional Theory (DFT) based on the
latest quantum Monte-Carlo calculations and experimental results, we show that this phase is competitive over a large region of the phase diagram. The oscillations in the number densities and pairing field have a substantial amplitude, and a period some 3 to 10 times the average interparticle separation. Within the DFT, the transition to a normal polarized Fermi liquid at large polarizations is smooth, while the transition to a fully-paired superfluid is abrupt.
In this paper we show that dark matter in the form of dense matter/antimatter nuggets could provide a natural and unified explanation for several distinct bands of diffuse radiation from the core of the Galaxy spanning over 12 orders of magnitude in
frequency. We fix all of the phenomenological properties of this model by matching to x-ray observations in the keV band, and then calculate the unambiguously predicted thermal emission in the microwave band, at frequencies smaller by 10 orders of magnitude. Remarkably, the intensity and spectrum of the emitted thermal radiation are consistent with--and could entirely explain--the so-called WMAP haze: a diffuse microwave excess observed from the core of our Galaxy by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). This provides another strong constraint of our proposal, and a remarkable nontrivial validation. If correct, our proposal identifies the nature of the dark matter, explains baryogenesis, and provides a means to directly probe the matter distribution in our Galaxy by analyzing several different types of diffuse emissions.
Here we describe the form of the Asymmetric Superfluid Local Density Approximation (ASLDA), a Density Functional Theory (DFT) used to model the two-component unitary Fermi gas. We give the rational behind the functional, and describe explicitly how w
e determine the form of the DFT from the to the available numerical and experimental data.
