Effect of finite impurity mass on the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe in one dimension

Strong-coupling ansatz for the one-dimensional Fermi gas in a harmonic potential

A major challenge in modern physics is to accurately describe strongly interacting quantum many-body systems. One-dimensional systems provide fundamental insights because they are often amenable to exact methods. However, no exact solution is known for the experimentally relevant case of external confinement. We propose a powerful ansatz for the one-dimensional Fermi gas in a harmonic potential near the limit of infinite short-range repulsion. For the case of a single impurity in a Fermi sea, we show that our ansatz is indistinguishable from numerically exact results in both the few- and many-body limits. We furthermore derive an effective Heisenberg spin-chain model corresponding to our ansatz, valid for any spin-mixture, within which we obtain the impurity eigenstates analytically. In particular, the classical Pascal's triangle emerges in the expression for the ground-state wave function. As well as providing an important benchmark for strongly correlated physics, our results are relevant for emerging quantum technologies, where a precise knowledge of one-dimensional quantum states is paramount.

Polarons, dressed molecules and itinerant ferromagnetism in ultracold Fermi gases

In this review, we discuss the properties of a few impurity atoms immersed in a gas of ultracold fermions--the so-called Fermi polaron problem. On one hand, this many-body system is appealing because it can be described almost exactly with simple diagrammatic and/or variational theoretical approaches. On the other, it provides a quantitatively reliable insight into the phase diagram of strongly interacting population-imbalanced quantum mixtures. In particular, we show that the polaron problem can be applied to the study of itinerant ferromagnetism, a long-standing problem in quantum mechanics.

Quantum flutter: signatures and robustness

We investigate the motion of an impurity particle injected with finite velocity into an interacting one-dimensional quantum gas. Using large-scale numerical simulations based on matrix product states, we observe and quantitatively analyze long-lived oscillations of the impurity momentum around a nonzero saturation value, called quantum flutter. We show that the quantum flutter frequency is equal to the energy difference between two branches of collective excitations of the model. We propose an explanation of the finite saturation momentum of the impurity based on the properties of the edge of the excitation spectrum. Our results indicate that quantum flutter exists away from integrability and provide parameter regions in which it could be observed in experiments with ultracold atoms using currently available technology.

Singular responses of spin-incoherent Luttinger liquids

When a local potential changes abruptly in time, an electron gas responds by shifting to a new state which at long times is orthogonal to the one in the absence of the local potential. This is known as Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe and it is relevant for the so-called x-ray edge or Fermi-edge singularity, and for tunneling into an interacting one-dimensional system of fermions. It often happens that the finite frequency response of the photon absorption or the tunneling density of states exhibits a singular behavior as a function of frequency: [Formula: see text], where ω(th) is a threshold frequency and α is an exponent characterizing the singular response. In this review singular responses of spin-incoherent Luttinger liquids are reviewed. Such responses most often do not fall into the familiar form above, but instead typically exhibit logarithmic corrections and display a much higher universality in terms of the microscopic interactions in the theory. Specific predictions are made, the current experimental situation is summarized and key outstanding theoretical issues related to spin-incoherent Luttinger liquids are highlighted.

Fermi-edge singularity in a spin-incoherent Luttinger liquid

We theoretically investigate the Fermi-edge singularity in a spin-incoherent Luttinger liquid. Both cases of finite and infinite core hole mass are explored, as well as the effect of a static external magnetic field of arbitrary strength. For a finite mass core hole the absorption edge behaves as (omega-omega th)alpha/square root of absolute value (ln(omega-omega th)) for frequencies omega just above the threshold frequency omega th. The exponent alpha depends on the interaction parameter g of the interacting one dimensional system, the electron-hole coupling, and is independent of the magnetic field strength, the momentum, and the mass of the excited core hole (in contrast to the spin-coherent case). In the infinite mass limit, the spin-incoherent problem can be mapped onto an equivalent problem in a spinless Luttinger liquid for which the logarithmic factor is absent, and backscattering from the core hole leads to a universal contribution to the exponent alpha.