Hetero-pairing and pseudogap phenomena in an ultracold Fermi gas with mass imbalance

Abstract

We investigate strong-coupling properties of a unitary Fermi gas consisting of two different species with different masses. Including pairing fluctuations within the self-consistent T-matrix approximation, we calculate the single-particle density of states in the normal state. We show that the pseudogap phenomenon, which is characterized by a dip structure in the density of states around ω = 0, appears more remarkably in the light mass component than in the heavy mass component. As a result, the pseudogap temperature, which is determined as the temperature at which the pseudogap disappears in the density of states, is higher in the former than in the latter. We also find that this different pseudogap temperatures lead to the existence of two kinds of pseudogap regions. That is, one is the ordinary pseudogap regime where the pseudogap appears in both the component, and the other case is that the light mass component only exhibits the pseudogap phenomenon. As the origin of these component- dependent pseudogap phenomena, we point out the importance of different Fermi temperatures between the two components. Since the formation of hetero-Cooper pairs and their condensation are expected in various systems, such as a 6Li-40K Fermi gas mixture, an exciton (polariton) gas, as well as color superconductivity, our results would be useful for the understanding of strong-coupling properties of these novel Fermi condensates.