Correlations in the low-density Fermi gas: Fermi-liquid state, dimerization, and Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer pairing

Abstract

We present ground state calculations for low-density Fermi gases described by two model interactions, an attractive square-well potential and a Lennard-Jones potential, of varying strength. We use the optimized Fermi-Hypernetted Chain integral equation method which has been proved to provide, in the density regimes of interest here, an accuracy better than one percent. We first examine the low-density expansion of the energy and compare with the exact answer by Huang and Yang (H. Huang and C. N. Yang, {\em Phys. Rev.\/} {\bf 105}, 767 (1957)). It is shown that a locally correlated wave function of the Jastrow-Feenberg type does not recover the quadratic term in the expansion of the energy in powers of $\a0\KF$, where $\a0$ is the vacuum $s$-wave scattering length and $\KF$ the Fermi wave number. The problem is cured by adding second-order perturbation corrections in a correlated basis. Going to higher densities and/or more strongly coupled systems, we encounter an instability of the normal state of the system which is characterized by a divergence of the {\em in-medium\/} scattering length. We interpret this divergence as a phonon-exchange driven dimerization of the system, similar to what one has at zero density when the vacuum scattering length $\a0$ diverges. We then study, in the stable regime, the superfluid gap and its dependence on the density and the interaction strength. We identify two different corrections to low-density expansions: One is medium corrections to the pairing interaction, and the other one finite-range corrections. We show that the most important finite-range corrections are a direct manifestation of the many-body nature of the system.