Dipolar Fermi Gas Research Articles

Viscous dynamics of a quenched trapped dipolar Fermi gas

Viscous dynamics of a quenched trapped dipolar Fermi gas

Superfluid transition in quasi-two-dimensional disordered dipolar Fermi gases

Superfluid transition in quasi-two-dimensional disordered dipolar Fermi gases

Itinerant ferromagnetism entrenched by the anisotropy of spin–orbit coupling in a dipolar Fermi gas

We investigate the itinerant ferromagnetism in a dipolar Fermi atomic system with the anisotropic spin–orbit coupling (SOC), which is traditionally explored with isotropic contact interaction. We first study the ferromagnetism transition boundaries and the properties of the ground states through the density and spin-flip distribution in momentum space, and we find that both the anisotropy and the magnitude of the SOC play an important role in this process. We propose a helpful scheme and a quantum control method which can be applied to conquering the difficulties of previous experimental observation of itinerant ferromagnetism. Our further study reveals that exotic Fermi surfaces and an abnormal phase region can exist in this system by controlling the anisotropy of SOC, which can provide constructive suggestions for the research and the application of a dipolar Fermi gas. Furthermore, we also calculate the ferromagnetism transition temperature and novel distributions in momentum space at finite temperature beyond the ground states from the perspective of experiment.

Anisotropic acoustics in dipolar Fermi gases

We consider plane wave modes in ultracold, but not quantum degenerate, dipolar Fermi gases in the hydrodynamic limit. Longitudinal waves present anisotropies in both the speed of sound and their damping, and experience a small, undulatory effect in their flow velocity. Two distinct types of shear waves appear, a ``familiar" one, and another that is accompanied by nontrivial density and temperature modulations. We propose these shear modes as an experimental means to measure the viscosity coefficients, including their anisotropies.

Double-degenerate Fermi mixtures of Li6 and Cr53 atoms

We report on the realization of a novel degenerate mixture of ultracold fermionic lithium and chromium atoms. Based on an all-optical approach, with an overall duty-cycle of about 13 seconds, we produce large and degenerate samples of more than 2$\times 10^5$ $^6$Li atoms and $10^5$ $^{53}$Cr atoms, with both species exhibiting normalized temperatures of about $T/T_{F}$=0.25. Additionally, through the exploitation of a crossed bichromatic optical dipole trap, we can controllably vary the density and degree of degeneracy of the two components almost independently, and widely tune the lithium-to-chromium density ratio. Our $^{6}$Li-$^{53}$Cr Fermi mixture opens the way to the investigation of a variety of exotic few- and many-body regimes of quantum matter, and it appears as an optimally-suited system to realize ultracold paramagnetic polar molecules, characterized by both electric and magnetic dipole moments. Ultimately, our strategy also provides an efficient pathway to produce dipolar Fermi gases, or spin-mixtures, of ultracold $^{53}$Cr atoms.

Revealing the topological nature of the bond order wave in a strongly correlated quantum system

We investigate the topological properties of the bond order wave phase arising in the extended Fermi-Hubbard model. In particular, we uncover a topological sector, which remained elusive in previous finite-size numerical studies due to boundary effects. We first show that, for an infinite system, the bond order wave regime is characterized by two degenerate bulk states corresponding to the trivial and topological sectors. The latter turns out to be indeed characterized by an even degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum and long-range order of a string correlation function. For finite-size systems, we show that the topological sector can be stabilized by imposing a suitable border potential. This therefore provides a concrete protocol for the observation of topologically protected degenerate edge modes in finite-size systems. Furthermore, we show that the bulk of the system is characterized by exotic solitonic solutions interpolating between the trivial and topological sectors. Finally, we propose an implementation and detection scheme of this strongly correlated topological phase in a quantum simulator based on dipolar Fermi gases in optical lattices.Received 13 January 2022Revised 19 April 2022Accepted 14 June 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L032005Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasCold gases in optical latticesDipolar gasesSymmetry protected topological statesTechniquesDensity matrix renormalization groupExtended Hubbard modelAtomic, Molecular & Optical

Itinerant ferromagnetism of a dipolar Fermi gas with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling

We elucidate the itinerant ferromagnetism of a dipolar Fermi gas with a Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling by investigating the exotic phase diagrams. It is revealed that the dipolar interaction along with spin-orbit coupling can corroborate the formation of ferromagnetism and that the Raman coupling adversely eliminates the tendency to this ferromagnetism transition, which greatly transcends the general understanding of this subject with contact interaction only. We explore the ground states through the density and spin-flip distribution in momentum space. We calculate the transition temperatures well within the reach of an experimental system when altering the dipolar and spin-orbit-coupling strength, which paves a way to the further experimental realization.

Toolbox for elementary fermions with a dipolar Fermi gas in a three-dimensional optical lattice

There has been growing interest in investigating properties of elementary particles predicted by the standard model. Examples of such studies include exploring their low-energy analogs in a condensed-matter system, where they arise as collective states or quasiparticles. Here we show that a toolbox for systematically engineering the emergent elementary fermions, i.e., Dirac, Weyl, and Majorana fermions, can be built in a single atomic system composed of a spinless magnetic dipolar Fermi gas in a three-dimensional optical lattice. The designed direction-dependent dipole-dipole interaction leads to both the basic building block, i.e., in-plane $p+ip$ superfluid pairing instability, and the manipulating tool, i.e., out-of-plane Peierls instability. It is shown that the Peierls instability provides a natural way of tuning the topological nature of $p+ip$ superfluids and can transform the fermion's nature between distinct emergent particles. Our scheme should contribute to the search for elementary particles through manipulating the topology.

Ground state of the polaron in an ultracold dipolar Fermi gas

An impurity atom immersed in an ultracold atomic Fermi gas can form a quasiparticle, so-called Fermi polaron, due to impurity-fermion interaction. We consider a three-dimensional homogeneous dipolar Fermi gas as a medium, where the interatomic dipole-dipole interaction (DDI) makes the Fermi surface deformed into a spheroidal shape, and, using a Chevy-type variational method, investigate the ground-state properties of the Fermi polaron: the effective mass, the momentum distribution of a particle-hole excitation, the drag parameter, and the medium-density modification around the impurity. These quantities are shown to exhibit spatial anisotropies in such a way as to reflect the momentum anisotropy of the background dipolar Fermi gas. We also give numerical results for the polaron properties at the unitarity limit of the impurity-fermion interaction in the case in which the impurity and fermion masses are equal. It has been found that the transverse effective mass and the transverse momentum drag parameter of the polaron both tend to decrease by $\ensuremath{\sim}10%$ when the DDI strength is raised from 0 up to around its critical value, while the longitudinal ones exhibit a very weak dependence on the DDI.

Superfluid transition in disordered dipolar Fermi gases

We consider a weakly interacting two-component Fermi gas of dipolar particles (magnetic atoms or polar molecules) in two-dimensional geometry. The dipole-dipole interaction (together with the short-range interaction at Feshbach resonances) for dipoles perpendicular to the plane of translational motion may provide a superfluid transition. The dipole-dipole scattering amplitude is momentum dependent, which violates the Anderson theorem that claims the independence of the transition temperature on the presence of weak disorder. We have shown that the disorder can strongly increase the critical temperature (up to $10\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{nK}$ at realistic densities). This opens wide possibilities for the studies of the superfluid regime in weakly interacting Fermi gases, which has not been observed so far.

Interplay between shell structure and trap deformation in dipolar Fermi gases

Finite fermion systems are known to exhibit shell structure in the weakly-interacting regime, as well known from atoms, nuclei, metallic clusters or even quantum dots in two dimensions. All these systems have in common that the particle interactions between electrons or nucleons are spatially isotropic. Dipolar quantum systems as they have been realized with ultra-cold gases, however, are governed by an intrinsic anisotropy of the two-body interaction that depends on the orientation of the dipoles relative to each other. Here we investigate how this interaction anisotropy modifies the shell structure in a weakly interacting two-dimensional anisotropic harmonic trap. Going beyond Hartree-Fock by applying the so-called "importance-truncated" configuration interaction (CI) method as well as quadratic CI with single- and double-substitutions, we show how the magnetostriction in the system may be counteracted upon by a deformation of the isotropic confinement, restoring the symmetry.

Ferromagnetic transition of a spin–orbit coupled dipolar Fermi gas at finite temperature**Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0301501).

We study the ferromagnetic transition of a two-component homogeneous dipolar Fermi gas with 1D spin–orbit coupling (SOC) at finite temperature. The ferromagnetic transition temperature is obtained as functions of dipolar constant λd, spin–orbit coupling constant λSOC and contact interaction constant λs. It increases monotonically with these three parameters. In the ferromagnetic phase, the Fermi surfaces of different components can be deformed differently. The phase diagrams at finite temperature are obtained.

Unconventional Superfluidity in Ultracold Dipolar Gases

In this manuscript, we discuss the emergence of p-wave superfluidity in a dipolar Fermi gas confined in a double layer array of parallel optical lattices in two dimensions. The dipole moments of the molecules placed at the sites of the optical lattices, separated a distance L and pointing in opposite directions produce an effective attractive interaction among them, except between those dipoles situated one on top of the other. Such interaction between dipoles is precisely the origin of the non-conventional superfluid state. We present the analysis for the ground state of the many-body system within the mean-field scheme. In particular, we study the stable regions, as a function of the system parameters, namely the effective interaction between dipoles and the filling factor n, for which the superfluid state can exist. Following the BKT scheme, we estimate the critical temperature of the superfluid state.

Phase separation in trapped dipolar Fermi gases

We study the ground state of a two-component dipolar Fermi gas in a spherically symmetric harmonic trap at zero temperature. We obtain the ground state of the system with equal but opposite values of the magnetic moment on the basis of the Thomas--Fermi--von Weizs\acker approximation. It is found that two types of phase-separated states which break the spherical symmetry emerge across the phase transition between a spin-symmetric phase and a phase-separation phase. One is an axially symmetric phase-separated state and the other is a one-dimensional alternating-spin layered state. We also study a Fermi-Fermi mixture of polarized Dy and Er atoms and show that a structural transition of phase separation can be observed in current experiments by varying the relative number of particles.

Topological supersolidity of dipolar Fermi gases in a spin-dependent optical lattice

We investigate the topological supersolid states of dipolar Fermi gases trapped in a spin-dependent 2D optical lattice. Our results show that topological supersolid states can be achieved via the combination of topological superfluid states with the stripe order. Different from the general held belief that supersolid state in fermionic system can only survive with simultaneous coexistence of the repulsive and attractive dipolar interaction. We demonstrate that it can be maintained when the dipolar interaction is attractive in both x and y direction. By adjusting the ratio of hopping amplitude between different directions and dipolar interaction strength U, the system will undergo a phase transition among px + ipy superfluid state, py-wave superfluid state, and the topological supersolid state. The supersolid state in the attractive environment is proved to be stable by the positive sign of the inverse compressibility. We also design an experimental protocol to realize the staggered next-next-nearest-neighbor hopping via the laser assisted tunneling technique, which is the key to simulate the spin-dependent potential.

Phase Diagram of a Spin-Orbit Coupled Dipolar Fermi Gas at T = 0 K**Supported by the Chinese National Key Research and Development Project of China under Grant No. 2016YFA0301501.

We study a homogeneous two-component dipolar Fermi gas with 1D spin-orbit coupling (SOC) at zero temperature and find that the system undergoes a transition from the paramagnetic phase to the ferromagnetic phase under suitable dipolar interaction constant λd, SOC constant λSOC and contact interaction constant λs. This phase transition can be of either 1st order or 2nd order, depending on the parameters. Near the 2nd-order phase transition, the system is partially magnetized in the ferromagnetic phase. With SOC, the ferromagnetic phase can even exist in the absence of the contact interaction. The increase in dipolar interaction, SOC strength, and contact interaction are all helpful to stabilize the ferromagnetic state. The critical dipolar interaction strength at the phase transition can be reduced by the increase in SOC strength or contact interaction. Phase diagrams of these systems are obtained.

Effect of correlation on the properties of 2D spin-polarized dipolar Fermi gas

The spin-polarized 2D dipolar Fermi gas trapped in a harmonic potential provides an opportunity to study the many-fermion systems with strong particle–particle correlation in a controlled fashion. In this paper, we investigate the role of the correlation part of the interaction energy on the ground-state properties and on the collective oscillation frequencies of a 2D dipolar Fermi gas by employing density functional theory (DFT) within local density approximation. We employ a purely density-based, orbital-free approach of DFT to study the ground-state properties. We employ an orbital-free approach, as it is suitable for handling a large number of fermions (103–104 atoms/molecules), which are typically the number of atoms/molecules contained in the samples of dipolar Fermi gas created in the laboratories. We derive analytical expressions for the frequencies of the monopole and quadrupole modes of the collective oscillations by employing a method based on the sum-rule approach of linear response theory. We find that the exchange and correlation part of the fermion–fermion interaction contributes significantly to the total energy, and their contributions increase with increasing number of fermions and interaction strength. In particular, the correlation part lowers the total energy of the 2D dipolar fermionic system, thereby stabilizing the system. Similarly, the inclusion of the correlation effect lowers the frequencies of the monopole mode of the collective oscillations appreciably in comparison to the case when this effect is not taken into account. On the other hand, the frequency of the quadrupole mode of the collective oscillations is not appreciably altered by the correlation part of the interaction over a wide range of values of interaction strength and number of fermions.

Stability of quantum degenerate Fermi gases of tilted polar molecules

A recent experimental realization of quantum degenerate gas of $^{40}$K$^{87}$Rb molecules opens up prospects of exploring strong dipolar Fermi gases and many-body phenomena arising in that regime. Here we derive a mean-field variational approach based on the Wigner function for the description of ground-state properties of such systems. We show that the stability of dipolar fermions in a general harmonic trap is universal as it only depends on the trap aspect ratios and the dipoles' orientation. We calculate the species-independent stability diagram and the deformation of the Fermi surface (FS) for polarized molecules, whose electric dipoles are oriented along a preferential direction. Compared to atomic magnetic species, the stability of a molecular electric system turns out to strongly depend on its geometry and the FS deformation significantly increases.

Emergent interlayer nodal superfluidity of a dipolar Fermi gas in bilayer optical lattices

Understanding the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity is one of the central issues in condensed matter physics. Such interplay induced nodal structure of superconducting gap is widely believed to be a signature of exotic pairing mechanism (not phonon mediated) to achieve unconventional superconductivity, such as in heavy fermion, high $T_c$, and organic superconductors. Here we report a new mechanism to drive the interplay between magnetism and superfluidity via the spatially anisotropic interaction. This scheme frees up the usual requirement of suppressing long-range magnetic order to access unconventional superconductivity like through doping or adding pressure in solids. Surprisingly, even for the half-filling case, such scheme can lead the coexistence of superfluidity and antiferromagnetism and interestingly an unexpected interlayer nodal superfluid emerges, which will be demonstrated through a cold atom system composed of a pseudospin-$1/2$ dipolar fermi gas in bilayer optical lattices. Our mechanism should pave an alternative way to unveil exotic pairing scheme resulting from the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity or superfluidity.

Realization of a Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas of Dipolar Atoms.

We realize a two-component dipolar Fermi gas with tunable interactions, using erbium atoms. Employing a lattice-protection technique, we selectively prepare deeply degenerate mixtures of the two lowest spin states and perform high-resolution Feshbach spectroscopy in an optical dipole trap. We identify a comparatively broad Feshbach resonance and map the interspin scattering length in its vicinity. The Fermi mixture shows a remarkable collisional stability in the strongly interacting regime, providing a first step towards studies of superfluid pairing, crossing from Cooper pairs to bound molecules, in presence of dipole-dipole interactions.