Zero-Temperature Properties of a Strongly Interacting Superfluid Fermi Gas in the BCS–BEC Crossover Region

Abstract

We investigate thermodynamic properties and effects of quantum fluctuations in the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS)–Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover region of a superfluid Fermi gas in the low-temperature limit. Including strong-coupling corrections within the framework of an extended T-matrix approximation, we numerically compute the isothermal compressibility $$\chi _n$$ . While quantum fluctuation effects on $$\chi _n$$ in the strong-coupling BEC regime are explained by the quantum depletion due to a repulsive interaction between tightly bound molecules, effects of self-energy shift on the Fermi chemical potential are found to enhance $$\chi _n$$ in the weak-coupling BCS region. We also show that the calculated $$\chi _n$$ agrees well with the recent experiment on a $$^6$$ Li Fermi gas done from the weak-coupling region to the unitarity limit. Our result would be useful for the study of many-body quantum corrections in the BCS–BEC crossover region of a strongly interacting Fermi superfluid.