Shear Viscosity and Strong-Coupling Corrections in the BCS–BEC Crossover Regime of an Ultracold Fermi Gas

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the shear viscosity $\eta$ in the BCS-BEC crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas with a Feshbach resonance. Within the framework of the strong-coupling self-consistent $T$-matrix approximation, we examine how a strong pairing interaction associated with a Feshbach resonance affects this transport coefficient, in the normal state above the superfluid phase transition temperature $T_{\rm c}$. We show that, while $\eta$ diverges in both the weak-coupling BCS and strong-coupling BEC limits, it becomes small in the unitary regime. The minimum of $\eta$ is obtained, not at the unitarity, but slightly in the strong-coupling BEC side. This deviation is consistent with the recent experiment on a $^6$Li Fermi gas. In the weak-coupling BCS regime, we also find that $\eta$ exhibits anomalous temperature dependence near $T_{\rm c}$, which is deeply related to the pseudogap phenomenon originating form strong pairing fluctuations.