Observation of a two-dimensional fermi gas of atoms

Effects of Quantum Fluctuations on the Low-Energy Collective Modes of Two-Dimensional Superfluid Fermi Gases from the BCS to the Bose Limit

We investigate the effects of quantum fluctuations on the low-energy collective modes of two-dimensional (2D) s-wave Fermi superfluids from the BCS to the Bose limit. We compare our results to recent Bragg scattering experiments in 2D box potentials, with very good agreement. We show that quantum fluctuations in the phase and modulus of the pairing order parameter are absolutely necessary to give physically acceptable chemical potential and dispersion relation of the low-energy collective mode throughout the BCS to Bose evolution. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the dispersion of the collective modes change from concave to convex as interactions are tuned from the BCS to the Bose regime, and never crosses the two-particle continuum, because arbitrarily small attractive interactions produce bound states in two dimensions.

Tuning Long-Range Fermion-Mediated Interactions in Cold-Atom Quantum Simulators

Engineering long-range interactions in cold-atom quantum simulators can lead to exotic quantum many-body behavior. Fermionic atoms in ultracold atomic mixtures can act as mediators, giving rise to long-range Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida-type interactions characterized by the dimensionality and density of the fermionic gas. Here, we propose several tuning knobs, accessible in current experimental platforms, that allow one to further control the range and shape of the mediated interactions, extending the existing quantum simulation toolbox. In particular, we include an additional optical lattice for the fermionic mediator, as well as anisotropic traps to change its dimensionality in a continuous manner. This allows us to interpolate between power-law and exponential decays, introducing an effective cutoff for the interaction range, as well as to tune the relative interaction strengths at different distances. Finally, we show how our approach allows one to investigate frustrated regimes that were not previously accessible, where symmetry-protected topological phases as well as chiral spin liquids emerge.

Observing the Influence of Reduced Dimensionality on Fermionic Superfluids

Understanding the origins of unconventional superconductivity has been a major focus of condensed matter physics for many decades. While many questions remain unanswered, experiments have found the highest critical temperatures in layered two-dimensional materials. However, to what extent the remarkable stability of these strongly correlated 2D superfluids is affected by their reduced dimensionality is still an open question. Here, we use dilute gases of ultracold fermionic atoms as a model system to directly observe the influence of dimensionality on the stability of strongly interacting fermionic superfluids. We find that the superfluid gap follows the same universal function of the interaction strength regardless of dimensionality, which suggests that there is no inherent difference in the stability of two- and three-dimensional fermionic superfluids. Finally, we compare our data to results from solid state systems and find a similar relation between the interaction strength and the gap for a wide range of two- and three-dimensional superconductors.

Precision Many-Body Study of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition and Temperature-Dependent Properties in the Two-Dimensional Fermi Gas

We perform large-scale, numerically exact calculations on the two-dimensional interacting Fermi gas with a contact attraction. Reaching much larger lattice sizes and lower temperatures than previously possible, we determine systematically the finite-temperature phase diagram of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transitions for interaction strengths ranging from BCS to crossover to BEC regimes. The evolutions of the pairing wave functions and the fermion and Cooper pair momentum distributions with temperature are accurately characterized. In the crossover regime, we find that the contact has a nonmonotonic temperature dependence, first increasing as temperature is lowered, and then showing a slight decline below the BKT transition temperature to approach the ground-state value from above.

Propagation dynamics and radiation forces of autofocusing circle Bessel Gaussian vortex beams in a harmonic potential

In this paper, the circle Bessel Gaussian vortex beams (CBGVBs) are introduced in a harmonic potential for the first time, whose autofocusing properties are explored by theoretical analysis as well as numerical simulation. According to the dimensionless linear (2+1)D Schrödinger equation, we numerically simulate the transmission trajectories of different topological charges of the off-axis vortices and the positions, the intensity and the phase distributions, the maximum transmission intensity, the center of mass, the energy flow, and the angular momentum. The simulation results show that the periodically autofocusing CBGVBs can flexibly adjust the position, the intensity, and the focus points by controlling the parameters. By increasing the number of off-axis vortices and adjusting the position of off-axis vortices, the transmission trajectory and the intensity of the CBGVBs can be controlled. Furthermore, we notice that the larger the slope of the curve where the combined force of the scattering force and the gradient force is 0, the particles are more likely to be trapped.

Critical Temperature in the BCS-BEC Crossover with Spin-Orbit Coupling

We review the study of the superfluid phase transition in a system of fermions whose interaction can be tuned continuously along the crossover from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconducting phase to a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), also in the presence of a spin–orbit coupling. Below a critical temperature the system is characterized by an order parameter. Generally a mean field approximation cannot reproduce the correct behavior of the critical temperature Tc over the whole crossover. We analyze the crucial role of quantum fluctuations beyond the mean-field approach useful to find Tc along the crossover in the presence of a spin–orbit coupling, within a path integral approach. A formal and detailed derivation for the set of equations useful to derive Tc is performed in the presence of Rashba, Dresselhaus and Zeeman couplings. In particular in the case of only Rashba coupling, for which the spin–orbit effects are more relevant, the two-body bound state exists for any value of the interaction, namely in the full crossover. As a result the effective masses of the emerging bosonic excitations are finite also in the BCS regime.

Reaching the Continuum Limit in Finite-Temperature Ab Initio Field-Theory Computations in Many-Fermion Systems

Finite-temperature grand-canonical computations based on field theory are widely applied in areas including condensed matter physics, ultracold atomic gas systems, and the lattice gauge theory. However, these calculations have computational costs scaling as N_{s}^{3} with the size of the lattice or basis set, N_{s}. We report a new approach based on systematically controllable low-rank factorization that reduces the scaling of such computations to N_{s}N_{e}^{2}, where N_{e} is the average number of fermions in the system. In any realistic calculations aiming to describe the continuum limit, N_{s}/N_{e} is large and needs to be extrapolated effectively to infinity for convergence. The method thus fundamentally changes the prospect for finite-temperature many-body computations in correlated fermion systems. Its application, in combination with frameworks to control the sign or phase problem as needed, will provide a powerful tool in ab initio quantum chemistry and correlated electron materials. We demonstrate the method by computing exact properties of the two-dimensional Fermi gas with zero-range attractive interaction as a function of temperature in both the normal and superfluid states.

Quantum Anomaly and Thermodynamics of One-Dimensional Fermions with Three-Body Interactions

We show that a system of three species of one-dimensional fermions, with an attractive three-body contact interaction, features a scale anomaly directly related to the anomaly of two-dimensional fermions with two-body contact forces. We show, furthermore, that those two cases (and their multispecies generalizations) are the only nonrelativistic systems with contact interactions that display a scale anomaly. While the two-dimensional case is well known and has been under study both experimentally and theoretically for years, the one-dimensional case presented here has remained unexplored. For the latter, we calculate the impact of the anomaly on the equation of state, which appears through the generalization of Tan's contact for three-body forces, and determine the pressure at finite temperature. In addition, we show that the third-order virial coefficient is proportional to the second-order coefficient of the two-dimensional two-body case.

Two-Dimensional Homogeneous Fermi Gases

We report on the experimental realization of homogeneous two-dimensional (2D) Fermi gases trapped in a box potential. In contrast to harmonically trapped gases, these homogeneous 2D systems are ideally suited to probe local as well as nonlocal properties of strongly interacting many-body systems. As a first benchmark experiment, we use a local probe to measure the density of a noninteracting 2D Fermi gas as a function of the chemical potential and find excellent agreement with the corresponding equation of state. We then perform matter wave focusing to extract the momentum distribution of the system and directly observe Pauli blocking in a near unity occupation of momentum states. Finally, we measure the momentum distribution of an interacting homogeneous 2D gas in the crossover between attractively interacting fermions and bosonic dimers.

Kinetic Energy of a Trapped Fermi Gas at Finite Temperature

We study the statistics of the kinetic (or, equivalently, potential) energy for N noninteracting fermions in a 1d harmonic trap of frequency ω at finite temperature T. Remarkably, we find an exact solution for the full distribution of the kinetic energy, at any temperature T and for any N, using a nontrivial mapping to an integrable Calogero-Moser-Sutherland model. As a function of temperature T and for large N, we identify (i) a quantum regime, for T∼ℏω, where quantum fluctuations dominate and (ii) a thermal regime, for T∼Nℏω, governed by thermal fluctuations. We show how the mean and the variance as well as the large deviation function associated with the distribution of the kinetic energy cross over from the quantum to the thermal regime as T increases.

Phase Separation and Pair Condensation in a Spin-Imbalanced 2D Fermi Gas

We study a two-component quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gas with imbalanced spin populations. We probe the gas at different interaction strengths and polarizations by measuring the density of each spin component in the trap and the pair momentum distribution after time of flight. For a wide range of experimental parameters, we observe in-trap phase separation characterized by the appearance of a spin-balanced core surrounded by a polarized gas. Our momentum space measurements indicate pair condensation in the imbalanced gas even for large polarizations where phase separation vanishes, pointing to the presence of a polarized pair condensate. Our observation of zero momentum pair condensates in 2D spin-imbalanced gases opens the way to explorations of more exotic superfluid phases that occupy a large part of the phase diagram in lower dimensions.

Equation of State of Ultracold Fermions in the 2D BEC-BCS Crossover Region

We report the experimental measurement of the equation of state of a two-dimensional Fermi gas with attractive s-wave interactions throughout the crossover from a weakly coupled Fermi gas to a Bose gas of tightly bound dimers as the interaction strength is varied. We demonstrate that interactions lead to a renormalization of the density of the Fermi gas by several orders of magnitude. We compare our data near the ground state and at finite temperature with predictions for both fermions and bosons from quantum Monte Carlo simulations and Luttinger-Ward theory. Our results serve as input for investigations of close-to-equilibrium dynamics and transport in the two-dimensional system.

Thermodynamics of an Attractive 2D Fermi Gas

Thermodynamic properties of matter are conveniently expressed as functional relations between variables known as equations of state. Here we experimentally determine the compressibility, density, and pressure equations of state for an attractive 2D Fermi gas in the normal phase as a function of temperature and interaction strength. In 2D, interacting gases exhibit qualitatively different features to those found in 3D. This is evident in the normalized density equation of state, which peaks at intermediate densities corresponding to the crossover from classical to quantum behavior.

Propagation Dynamics of a Light Beam in a Fractional Schrödinger Equation

The dynamics of wave packets in the fractional Schrödinger equation is still an open problem. The difficulty stems from the fact that the fractional Laplacian derivative is essentially a nonlocal operator. We investigate analytically and numerically the propagation of optical beams in the fractional Schrödinger equation with a harmonic potential. We find that the propagation of one- and two-dimensional input chirped Gaussian beams is not harmonic. In one dimension, the beam propagates along a zigzag trajectory in real space, which corresponds to a modulated anharmonic oscillation in momentum space. In two dimensions, the input Gaussian beam evolves into a breathing ring structure in both real and momentum spaces, which forms a filamented funnel-like aperiodic structure. The beams remain localized in propagation, but with increasing distance display an increasingly irregular behavior, unless both the linear chirp and the transverse displacement of the incident beam are zero.

Pressure, compressibility, and contact of the two-dimensional attractive fermi gas

Using ab initio lattice methods, we calculate the finite temperature thermodynamics of homogeneous two-dimensional spin-1/2 fermions with attractive short-range interactions. We present results for the density, pressure, compressibility, and quantum anomaly (i.e., Tan's contact) for a wide range of temperatures (mostly above the superfluid phase, including the pseudogap regime) and coupling strengths, focusing on the unpolarized case. Within our statistical and systematic uncertainties, our prediction for the density equation of state differs quantitatively from the prediction by Luttinger-Ward theory in the strongly coupled region of parameter space, but otherwise agrees well with it. We also compare our calculations with the second- and third-order virial expansion, with which they are in excellent agreement in the low-fugacity regime.

Spin-imbalanced quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gases

We measure the density profiles for a Fermi gas of (6)Li containing N(1) spin-up atoms and N(2) spin-down atoms, confined in a quasi-two-dimensional geometry. The spatial profiles are measured as a function of spin imbalance N(2)/N(1) and interaction strength, which is controlled by means of a collisional (Feshbach) resonance. The measured cloud radii and central densities are in disagreement with mean-field Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory for a true two-dimensional system. We find that the data for normal-fluid mixtures are reasonably well fit by a simple two-dimensional polaron model of the free energy. Not predicted by the model is a phase transition to a spin-balanced central core, which is observed above a critical value of N(2)/N(1). Our observations provide important benchmarks for predictions of the phase structure of quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gases.

Dynamical phases in quenched spin-orbit-coupled degenerate Fermi gas

The spin-orbit-coupled degenerate Fermi gas provides a new platform for realizing topological superfluids and related topological excitations. However, previous studies have been mainly focused on the topological properties of the stationary ground state. Here, we investigate the quench dynamics of a spin-orbit-coupled two-dimensional Fermi gas in which the Zeeman field serves as the major quench parameter. Three post-quench dynamical phases are identified according to the asymptotic behaviour of the order parameter. In the undamped phase, a persistent oscillation of the order parameter may support a topological Floquet state with multiple edge states. In the damped phase, the magnitude of the order parameter approaches a constant via a power-law decay, which may support a dynamical topological phase with one edge state at the boundary. In the overdamped phase, the order parameter decays to zero exponentially although the condensate fraction remains finite. These predictions can be observed in the strong-coupling regime.

Effects of spin-orbit coupling on the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition and the vortex-antivortex structure in two-dimensional Fermi gases

We investigate the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in a 2D Fermi gas with spin-orbit coupling (SOC), as a function of the two-body binding energy and a perpendicular Zeeman field. By including a generic form of the SOC, as a function of Rashba and Dresselhaus terms, we study the evolution between the experimentally relevant equal Rashba-Dresselhaus (ERD) case and the Rashba-only (RO) case. We show that in the ERD case, at a fixed nonzero Zeeman field, the BKT transition temperature T(BKT) is increased by the presence of SOC for all values of the binding energy. We also find a significant increase in the value of the Clogston limit compared to the case without SOC. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the superfluid density tensor becomes anisotropic (except in the RO case), leading to an anisotropic phase-fluctuation action that describes elliptic vortices and antivortices, which become circular in the RO limit. This deformation constitutes an important experimental signature for superfluidity in a 2D Fermi gas with ERD SOC. Finally, we show that the anisotropic sound velocities exhibit anomalies at low temperatures, in the vicinity of quantum phase transitions between topologically distinct uniform superfluid phases.

FFLO superfluids in 2D spin-orbit coupled Fermi gases

We show that the combination of spin-orbit coupling and in-plane Zeeman field in a two-dimensional degenerate Fermi gas can lead to a larger parameter region for Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phases than that using spin-imbalanced Fermi gases. The resulting FFLO superfluids are also more stable due to the enhanced energy difference between FFLO and conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) excited states. We clarify the crucial role of the symmetry of Fermi surface on the formation of finite momentum pairing. The phase diagram for FFLO superfluids is obtained in the BCS-BEC crossover region and possible experimental observations of FFLO phases are discussed.

Ground-state pressure of quasi-2D Fermi and Bose gases

Using an ultracold gas of atoms, we have realized a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi system with widely tunable s-wave interactions nearly in a ground state. Pressure and density are measured. The experiment covers physically different regimes: weakly and strongly attractive Fermi gases and a Bose gas of tightly bound pairs of fermions. In the Fermi regime of weak interactions, the pressure is systematically above a Fermi-liquid-theory prediction, maybe due to mesoscopic effects. In the opposite Bose regime, the pressure agrees with a bosonic mean-field scaling in a range beyond simplest expectations. In the strongly interacting regime, measurements disagree with a purely 2D model. Reported data may serve for sensitive testing of theoretical methods applicable across different quantum physics disciplines.

Pair correlations in the two-dimensional Fermi gas

We consider the two-dimensional Fermi gas at finite temperature with attractive short-range interactions. Using the virial expansion, which provides a controlled approach at high temperatures, we determine the spectral function and contact for the normal state. Our calculated spectra are in qualitative agreement with recent photoemission measurements [M. Feld et al., Nature (London) 480, 75 (2011).], thus suggesting that the observed pairing gap is a feature of the high-temperature gas rather than being evidence of a pseudogap regime just above the superfluid transition temperature. We further argue that the strong pair correlations result from the fact that the crossover to bosonic dimers occurs at weaker interactions than previously assumed.

Momentum distribution functions in ensembles: the inequivalence of microcannonical and canonical ensembles in a finite ultracold system

It is demonstrated in many thermodynamic textbooks that the equivalence of the different ensembles is achieved in the thermodynamic limit. In this present work we discuss the inequivalence of microcanonical and canonical ensembles in a finite ultracold system at low energies. We calculate the microcanonical momentum distribution function (MDF) in a system of identical fermions (bosons). We find that the microcanonical MDF deviates from the canonical one, which is the Fermi-Dirac (Bose-Einstein) function, in a finite system at low energies where the single-particle density of states and its inverse are finite.

Flow-induced charge modulation in superfluid atomic fermions loaded into an optical kagome lattice

We study the superfluid state of atomic fermions in a tunable optical kagome lattice motivated by recent experiments. We show that the imposed superflow induces spatial modulations in the density and order parameter of the pair condensate and leads to a charge modulated superfluid state analogous to a supersolid state. The spatial modulations in the superfluid emerge due to the geometric effect of the kagome lattice that introduces anisotropy in hopping amplitudes of fermion pairs in the presence of superflow. We also study superflow instabilities and find that the critical current limited by the dynamical instability is quite enhanced due to the large density of states associated with the flatband. The charge modulated superfluid state can sustain high temperatures close to the transition temperature that is also enhanced due to the flatband and is therefore realizable in experiments.

Unconventional superfluid in a two-dimensional Fermi gas with anisotropic spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman fields

We study the phase diagram of a two-dimensional ultracold Fermi gas with the synthetic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) that has recently been realized at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Because of the coexistence of anisotropic SOC and effective Zeeman fields in the NIST scheme, the system shows a rich structure of phase separation involving exotic gapless superfluid states and Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) pairing states with different center-of-mass momenta. In particular, we characterize the stability region of FFLO states and demonstrate their unique features under SOC. We then show that the effective transverse Zeeman field in the NIST scheme can qualitatively change the landscape of the thermodynamic potential which leads to intriguing effects such as the disappearance of pairing instability, the competition between different FFLO states, and the stabilization of a fully gapped FFLO state. These interesting features may be probed, for example, by measuring the in situ density profiles or by the momentum-resolved radio-frequency spectroscopy.

Bound states in a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gas

We consider the problem of N identical fermions of mass m(↑) and one distinguishable particle of mass m(↓) interacting via short-range interactions in a confined quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) geometry. For N=2 and mass ratios m(↑)/m(↓)<13.6, we find non-Efimov trimers that smoothly evolve from 2D to 3D. In the limit of strong 2D confinement, we show that the energy of the N+1 system can be approximated by an effective two-channel model. We use this approximation to solve the 3+1 problem and we find that a bound tetramer can exist for mass ratios m(↑)/m(↓) as low as 5 for strong confinement, thus providing the first example of a universal, non-Efimov tetramer involving three identical fermions.

Molecule and polaron in a highly polarized two-dimensional fermi gas with spin-orbit coupling

We show that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) gives rise to pairing instability in a highly polarized two-dimensional Fermi gas for an arbitrary interaction strength. The pairing instability can lead to a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov-like molecular state, which undergoes a first-order transition into a pairing state with zero center-of-mass momentum as the parameters are tuned. These pairing states are metastable against a polaron state dressed by particle-hole fluctuations for small SOC. At large SOC, a polaron-molecule transition exists, which suggests a phase transition between the topological superfluid state and the normal state for a highly polarized Fermi gas in the thermodynamic limit. As polarization in a Fermi gas with SOC is induced by the effective Zeeman field, we also discuss the influences of the effective Zeeman field on the ground state of the system. Our findings may be tested directly in future experiments.

Searching for Majorana fermions in 2D spin-orbit coupled Fermi superfluids at finite temperature

Recent experimental breakthroughs in realizing spin-orbit (SO) coupling for cold atoms have spurred considerable interest in the physics of two-dimensional SO coupled Fermi superfluids, especially topological Majorana fermions (MFs) which were predicted to exist at zero temperature. However, it is well known that long-range superfluid order is destroyed in two dimensions by phase fluctuations at finite temperature, and the relevant physics is the BKTs transition. In this Letter, we examine finite temperature effects on SO coupled Fermi gases and show that finite temperature is indeed necessary for the observation of MFs. Majorana fermions are topologically protected by a quasiparticle energy gap which is found to be much larger than the temperature. The restrictions to the parameter region for the observation of MFs have been obtained.

Evolution of fermion pairing from three to two dimensions

We follow the evolution of fermion pairing in the dimensional crossover from three-dimensional to two-dimensional as a strongly interacting Fermi gas of ^{6}Li atoms becomes confined to a stack of two-dimensional layers formed by a one-dimensional optical lattice. Decreasing the dimensionality leads to the opening of a gap in radio-frequency spectra, even on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer side of a Feshbach resonance. The measured binding energy of fermion pairs closely follows the theoretical two-body binding energy and, in the two-dimensional limit, the zero-temperature mean-field Bose-Einstein-condensation to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover theory.

BCS-BEC crossover in a two-dimensional Fermi gas

We investigate the crossover from Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluidity to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in a two-dimensional Fermi gas at T=0 using the fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo method. We calculate the equation of state and the gap parameter as a function of the interaction strength, observing large deviations compared to mean-field predictions. In the BEC regime our results show the important role of dimer-dimer and atom-dimer interaction effects that are completely neglected in the mean-field picture. Results on Tan's contact parameter associated with short-range physics are also reported along the BCS-BEC crossover.

Radio-frequency spectroscopy of a strongly interacting two-dimensional Fermi gas

We realize and study a strongly interacting two-component atomic Fermi gas confined to two dimensions in an optical lattice. Using radio-frequency spectroscopy we measure the interaction energy of the strongly interacting gas. We observe the confinement-induced Feshbach resonance on the attractive side of the 3D Feshbach resonance and find the existence of confinement-induced molecules in very good agreement with theoretical predictions.

Crossover from 2D to 3D in a weakly interacting Fermi gas

We have studied the transition from two to three dimensions in a low temperature weakly interacting 6Li Fermi gas. Below a critical atom number N(2D) only the lowest transverse vibrational state of a highly anisotropic oblate trapping potential is occupied and the gas is two dimensional. Above N(2D) the Fermi gas enters the quasi-2D regime where shell structure associated with the filling of individual transverse oscillator states is apparent. This dimensional crossover is demonstrated through measurements of the cloud size and aspect ratio versus atom number.