Unpaired Fermions Research Articles

Weyl Fermions on a Finite Lattice.

The phenomenon of unpaired Weyl fermions appearing on the sole 2n-dimensional boundary of a (2n+1)-dimensional manifold with massive Dirac fermions was recently analyzed in D. B. Kaplan [preceding Letter, Chiral gauge theory at the boundary between topological phases, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 141603 (2024).PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.132.141603]. In this Letter, we show that similar unpaired Weyl edge states can be seen on a finite lattice. In particular, we consider the discretized Hamiltonian for a Wilson fermion in (2+1) dimensions with a 1+1 dimensional boundary and continuous time. We demonstrate that the low lying boundary spectrum is indeed Weyl-like: it has a linear dispersion relation and definite chirality and circulates in only one direction around the boundary. We comment on how our results are consistent with Nielsen-Ninomiya theorem. This work removes one potential obstacle facing the program outlined in D. B. Kaplan, preceding Letter, for regulating chiral gauge theories.

Stable pair liquid phase in fermionic systems

We predict the existence of a pair-liquid phase in lattice fermion systems with finite-range attractive interactions. This exotic state competes on one side with a normal Fermi liquid of unpaired fermions and on the other side with a phase-separated state where all fermions are coupled into macroscopic clusters. We show that such a phase is absent in bosonic systems and therefore is protected by the exclusion principle. In contrast with zero-range attractive systems where clustering of more than two fermions is directly prohibited, here quantum statistics acts dynamically and in a more subtle way. Since a many-fermion wave function must have nodes, the cluster formation threshold is larger than the pair formation threshold. By directly solving a four-body Schroedinger equation on one- and two-dimensional lattices, we map the boundaries of pair stability. The pair liquid phase should be observable in cold atom systems. We also discuss implications for the preformed-pair mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity.

Excitation spectra of one-dimensional spin-1/2 Fermi gas with an attraction

Using an exact Bethe ansatz solution, we rigorously study excitation spectra of the spin-1/2 Fermi gas (called Yang–Gaudin model) with an attractive interaction. Elementary excitations of this model involve particle-hole excitation, hole excitation and adding particles in the Fermi seas of pairs and unpaired fermions. The gapped magnon excitations in the spin sector show a ferromagnetic coupling to the Fermi sea of the single fermions. By numerically and analytically solving the Bethe ansatz equations and the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz equations of this model, we obtain excitation energies for various polarizations in the phase of the Fulde–Ferrell–Larkin–Ovchinnikov-like state. For a small momentum (long-wavelength limit) and in the strong interaction regime, we analytically obtained their linear dispersions with curvature corrections, effective masses as well as velocities in particle-hole excitations of pairs and unpaired fermions. Such a type of particle-hole excitations display a novel separation of collective motions of bosonic modes within paired and unpaired fermions. Finally, we also discuss magnon excitations in the spin sector and the application of Bragg spectroscopy for testing such separated charge excitation modes of pairs and single fermions.

Temperature-Dependent Decay of Quasi-Two-Dimensional Vortices across the BCS-BEC Crossover.

We systematically study the decay of quasi-two-dimensional vortices in an oblate strongly interacting Fermi gas over a wide interaction range and observe that, as the system temperature is lowered, the vortex lifetime increases in the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) regime but decreases at unitarity and in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) regime. The observations can be qualitatively captured by a phenomenological model simply involving diffusion and two-body collisional loss, in which the vortex lifetime is mostly determined by the slower process of the two. In particular, the counterintuitive vortex decay in the BCS regime can be interpreted by considering the competition between the temperature dependence of the vortex annihilation rate and that of unpaired fermions. Our results suggest a competing mechanism for the complex vortex decay dynamics in the BCS-BEC crossover for the fermionic superfluids.

Topologically protected two-fluid edge states

Edge states reveal the nontrivial topology of energy band in the bulk. As localized states at boundaries, many-body edge states may obey a special symmetry that is broken in the bulk. When local particle-particle interaction is induced, they may support a particular property. We consider an extended two-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Hubbard model and examine the appearance of $\ensuremath{\eta}$-pairing states, which are excited eigenstates related to superconductivity. In the absence of Hubbard interaction, the energy band is characterized by topologically invariant polarization in association with edge states. In the presence of on-site Hubbard interaction, $\ensuremath{\eta}$-pairing edge states appear in the topologically nontrivial phase, resulting in the condensation of pairs at the boundary. In addition, as Hamiltonian eigenstates, the edge states contain paired fermions and unpaired fermions. Neither affects the other; they act as two-fluid states. From numerical simulations of many-body scattering processes, a clear manifestation and experimental detection scheme of topologically protected two-fluid edge states are provided.

Two-Fluid Coexistence in a Spinless Fermions Chain with Pair Hopping.

We show that a simple one-dimensional model of spinless fermions with pair hopping displays a phase in which a Luttinger liquid of paired fermions coexists with a Luttinger liquid of unpaired fermions. Our results are based on extensive numerical density-matrix renormalization-group calculations and are supported by a two-fluid model that captures the essence of the coexistence region.

Universal aspects of vortex reconnections across the BCS-BEC crossover

Reconnecting vortices in a superfluid allows for the energy transfer between different length scales and its subsequent dissipation. The present picture assumes that the dynamics of a reconnection is driven mostly by the phase of the order parameter, and this statement can be justified in the case of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs), where vortices have a simple internal structure. Therefore, it is natural to postulate that the reconnection dynamics in the vicinity of the reconnection moment is universal. This expectation has been confirmed in numerical simulations for BECs and experimentally for the superfluid $^{4}\mathrm{He}$. Not much has been said about this relation in the context of Fermi superfluids. In this Letter, we aim to bridge this gap, and we report our findings, which reveal that the reconnection dynamics conforms with the predicted universal behavior across the entire BCS-BEC crossover. The universal scaling also survives for spin-imbalanced systems, where unpaired fermions induce a complex structure of the colliding vortices.

Tunneling Transport of Unitary Fermions across the Superfluid Transition.

We investigate the transport of a Fermi gas with unitarity-limited interactions across the superfluid phase transition, probing its response to a direct current (dc) drive through a tunnel junction. As the superfluid critical temperature is crossed from below, we observe the evolution from a highly nonlinear to an Ohmic conduction characteristic, associated with the critical breakdown of the Josephson dc current induced by pair condensate depletion. Moreover, we reveal a large and dominant anomalous contribution to resistive currents, which reaches its maximum at the lowest attained temperature, fostered by the tunnel coupling between the condensate and phononic Bogoliubov-Anderson excitations. Increasing the temperature, while the zeroing of supercurrents marks the transition to the normal phase, the conductance drops considerably but remains much larger than that of a normal, uncorrelated Fermi gas tunneling through the same junction. We attribute such enhanced transport to incoherent tunneling of sound modes, which remain weakly damped in the collisional hydrodynamic fluid of unpaired fermions at unitarity.

Exploring emergent heterogeneous phases in strongly repulsive Fermi gases

Recent experiments have revitalized the interest in a Fermi gas of ultracold atoms with strong repulsive interactions. In spite of its seeming simplicity, this system exhibits a complex behavior, resulting from the competing action of two distinct instabilities: ferromagnetism, which promotes spin anticorrelations and domain formation; and pairing, that renders the repulsive fermionic atoms unstable towards forming weakly bound bosonic molecules. The breakdown of the homogeneous repulsive Fermi liquid arising from such concurrent mechanisms has been recently observed in real time through pump-probe spectroscopic techniques [A. Amico et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 253602 (2018)]. These studies also lead to the discovery of an emergent metastable many-body state, an unpredicted quantum emulsion of anticorrelated fermions and pairs. Here, we investigate in detail the properties of such an exotic regime by studying the evolution of kinetic and release energies, the spectral response and coherence of the unpaired fermionic population, and its spin-density noise correlations. All our observations consistently point to a low-temperature heterogeneous phase, where paired and unpaired fermions macroscopically coexist while featuring micro-scale phase separation. Our findings open new appealing avenues for the exploration of quantum emulsions and also possibly of inhomogeneous superfluid regimes, where pair condensation may coexist with magnetic order.

Doublon dynamics of Bose-Fermi mixtures in optical lattices

We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a dilute, lattice-confined Bose-Fermi mixture initialized in a highly excited state consisting of boson-fermion pairs (doublons) occupying single lattice sites. This system represents a paradigmatic case for studying relaxation dynamics in strongly correlated systems, and provides a versatile platform for studying thermalization and localization phenomena. We provide analytical expressions for the short-time decay of isolated doublons and small doublon clusters due to the competition between tunneling and interparticle interactions. We also discuss a mechanism for long-time decay that crucially depends on the quantum statistics of the particles constituting the doublon, namely, the conversion of pairs of neighboring doublons into an unpaired fermion and a site with a fermion and two bosons. Building on these insights, we develop a cluster expansion method to describe the dynamics in extended systems and compare it to numerically exact matrix product state simulations in one dimension. Finally, we discuss how our predictions can be observed in experiments with ultracold heteronuclear molecules.

Electrical detection of the Majorana fusion rule for chiral edge vortices in a topological superconductor

Majorana zero-modes bound to vortices in a topological superconductor have a non-Abelian exchange statistics expressed by a non-deterministic fusion rule: When two vortices merge they may or they may not produce an unpaired fermion with equal probability. Building on a recent proposal to inject edge vortices in a chiral mode by means of a Josephson junction, we show how the fusion rule manifests itself in an electrical measurement. A \bm {2\pi}2𝛑 phase shift at a pair of Josephson junctions creates a topological qubit in a state of even-even fermion parity, which is transformed by the chiral motion of the edge vortices into an equal-weight superposition of even-even and odd-odd fermion parity. Fusion of the edge vortices at a second pair of Josephson junctions results in a correlated charge transfer of zero or one electron per cycle, such that the current at each junction exhibits shot noise, but the difference of the currents is nearly noiseless.

Nonthermodynamic nature of the orbital angular momentum in neutral fermionic superfluids

We discuss the orbital angular momentum (OAM) and the edge mass current in neutral fermionic superfluids with broken time reversal symmetry. Recent mean field studies imply that total OAM of a uniform superfluid depends on boundary conditions and is not a thermodynamic quantity. We point out that this does not conflict with thermodynamics, because there is no intensive external field conjugate to OAM with which a uniform superfluid is stable in the thermodynamic limit, in sharp contrast to the orbital magnetization in a non-superfluid system. We establish a simple physical picture for the sensitivity of OAM to boundaries by introducing the notion of "unpaired fermions" and "fermionic Landau criterion" within a mean field description. In order to go beyond the mean field approximation, we perform a density matrix renormalization group calculation and conclude that the mean field understanding is essentially correct.

General build up of basis and matrix in the diagonalization approach. Determination of Kramers configuration state functions

AbstractAlgorithms to build the basis and matrix representation to obtain the Kramers configuration space functions (KCSFs) via diagonalization will be formally generalized to an arbitrary number of unpaired (open shell) fermions. Effective build up of the matrix representation will be outlined (including threading and graphical processing unit parallelism) to subsequently obtain the KCSFs via calling external/numerical library routines for diagonalization. The effective build up of the matrix representation relays on a binary tree search algorithm to allow evaluation the action on a given basis vector. The binary tree search avoids the treatment of zero matrix elements which leads to an exponential acceleration. The implementation ( basis creation, matrix representation, and matrix diagonalization) will be done in an all in core and all at once manner, hence the available core memory sets the physical limits in practical applications. Memory limitations, sparsity of the matrix, general case of n fermions in m spinors, and the application of KCSFs will be put into further perspective.

Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov correlation and free fluids in the one-dimensional attractive Hubbard model

In this Rapid Communication we show that low energy macroscopic properties of the one-dimensional (1D) attractive Hubbard model exhibit two fluids of bound pairs and of unpaired fermions. Using the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz equations of the model, we first determine the low temperature phase diagram and analytically calculate the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) pairing correlation function for the partially-polarized phase. We then show that for such a FFLO-like state in the low density regime the effective chemical potentials of bound pairs and unpaired fermions behave like two free fluids. Consequently, the susceptibility, compressibility and specific heat obey simple additivity rules, indicating the `free' particle nature of interacting fermions on a 1D lattice. In contrast to the continuum Fermi gases, the correlation critical exponents and thermodynamics of the attractive Hubbard model essentially depend on two lattice interacting parameters. Finally, we study scaling functions, the Wilson ratio and susceptibility which provide universal macroscopic properties/dimensionless constants of interacting fermions at low energy.

Asymptotic correlation functions and FFLO signature for the one-dimensional attractive Hubbard model

We study the long-distance asymptotic behavior of various correlation functions for the one-dimensional (1D) attractive Hubbard model in a partially polarized phase through the Bethe ansatz and conformal field theory approaches. We particularly find the oscillating behavior of these correlation functions with spatial power-law decay, of which the pair (spin) correlation function oscillates with a frequency ΔkF (2ΔkF). Here ΔkF=π(n↑−n↓) is the mismatch in the Fermi surfaces of spin-up and spin-down particles. Consequently, the pair correlation function in momentum space has peaks at the mismatch k=ΔkF, which has been observed in recent numerical work on this model. These singular peaks in momentum space together with the spatial oscillation suggest an analog of the Fulde–Ferrell–Larkin–Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state in the 1D Hubbard model. The parameter β representing the lattice effect becomes prominent in critical exponents which determine the power-law decay of all correlation functions. We point out that the backscattering of unpaired fermions and bound pairs within their own Fermi points gives a microscopic origin of the FFLO pairing in 1D.

Color superfluidity of neutral ultracold fermions in the presence of color-flip and color-orbit fields

We describe how color superfluidity is modified in the presence of color-flip and color-orbit fields in the context of ultra-cold atoms, and discuss connections between this problem and that of color superconductivity in quantum chromodynamics. We consider s-wave contact interactions between different colors, and we identify superfluid phases, with five being nodal and one being fully gapped. When our system is described in a mixed color basis, the superfluid order parameter tensor is characterized by six independent components with explicit momentum dependence induced by color-orbit coupling. The nodal superfluid phases are topological in nature, and the low temperature phase diagram of color-flip field versus interaction parameter exhibits a pentacritical point, where all five nodal color superfluid phases converge. These results are in sharp contrast to the case of zero color-flip and color-orbit fields, where the system has perfect U(3) symmetry and possess a superfluid phase that is characterized by fully gapped quasiparticle excitations with a single complex order parameter with no momentum dependence and by inert unpaired fermions representing a non-superfluid component. Furthermore, we analyse the order parameter tensor in a total pseudo-spin basis, investigate its momentum dependence in the singlet, triplet and quintet sectors, and compare the results with the simpler case of spin-1/2 fermions in the presence of spin-flip and spin-orbit fields. Finally, we analyse in detail spectroscopic properties of color superfluids in the presence of color-flip and color-orbit fields, such as the quasiparticle excitation spectrum, momentum distribution, and density of states to help characterize all the encountered topological quantum phases, which can be realized in fermionic isotopes of Lithium, Potassium and Ytterbium atoms with three internal states trapped.

Multiply Quantized Vortices in Fermionic Superfluids: Angular Momentum, Unpaired Fermions, and Spectral Asymmetry.

We compute the orbital angular momentum L_{z} of an s-wave paired superfluid in the presence of an axisymmetric multiply quantized vortex. For vortices with a winding number |k|>1, we find that in the weak-pairing BCS regime, L_{z} is significantly reduced from its value ℏNk/2 in the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) regime, where N is the total number of fermions. This deviation results from the presence of unpaired fermions in the BCS ground state, which arise as a consequence of spectral flow along the vortex subgap states. We support our results analytically and numerically by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations within the weak-pairing BCS regime.

Collective Modes of a Soliton Train in a Fermi Superfluid.

We characterize the collective modes of a soliton train in a quasi-one-dimensional Fermi superfluid, using a mean-field formalism. In addition to the expected Goldstone and Higgs modes, we find novel long-lived gapped modes associated with oscillations of the soliton cores. The soliton train has an instability that depends strongly on the interaction strength and the spacing of solitons. It can be stabilized by filling each soliton with an unpaired fermion, thus forming a commensurate Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase. We find that such a state is always dynamically stable, which paves the way for realizing long-lived FFLO states in experiments via phase imprinting.

Interplay between exotic superfluidity and magnetism in a chain of four-component ultracold atoms

We investigate the spin-polarized chain of ultracold fermionic atoms with spin-3/2 described by the fermionic Hubbard model with SU(4) symmetric attractive interaction. The competition of bound pairs, trions, quartets and unbound atoms is studied analytically and by density matrix renormalization group simulations. We find several distinct states where bound particles coexist with the ferromagnetic state of unpaired fermions. In particular, an exotic inhomogeneous Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO)-type superfluid of quartets in a magnetic background of uncorrelated atoms is found for weaker interactions. We show that the system can be driven from this quartet-FFLO state to a molecular state of localized quartets which is also reflected in the static structure factor. For strong enough coupling, spatial segregation between molecular crystals and ferromagnetic liquids emerges due to the large effective mass of the composite particles.

Exploring phases of dense QCD with compact stars

I review a number of recent developments in the physics of compact stars containing deconfined quark matter, including (a)~their cooling with possible phase transition from a fully gapped to a gapless phase of QCD at low temperatures and large isospin, (b)~the transport coefficients of the 2SC phase and the role played by the Aharonov-Bohm interactions between flux-tubes and unpaired fermions; (c)~rapidly rotating compact stars and spin-down and spin-up induced phase transition between hadronic and QCD matter as well as between different phases of QCD.