Boiling a Unitary Fermi Liquid

Quantization of nonequilibrium heat transport models based on isomorphism and gauge symmetry

The diffusive model in a local thermal equilibrium medium has been well established for classical heat transport. In this study, we investigated the gauge potential formulation of a heat transfer model in a non equilibrium system within classical and quantum frameworks. To achieve this, scalar and vector potential and gauge functions were first introduced to characterize the heat transport model. Subsequently, minimal coupling of the heat potential was established via isomorphic mapping between the heat transport and electromagnetism. The Schrödinger equation with quantized heat potentials that fulfill the gauge symmetry is established. Based upon, we further studied the quantization of enthalpy and entropy from a reversible thermodynamic process, including continuous and discretized system. Later, the connections between the non-isentropic condition and gauge symmetry violation were revealed to categorize classical-permitted and quantum-permitted processes. To support the study, thermal quantities are calculated according to the recent report in literature for the two predicted heat transport modes. Theoretically, it has been shown that the quantization of heat potentials as a consequence of isomorphic characterization and gauge symmetry. By incorporating the critical temperature and local symmetry breaking, it interprets the transition of quantum formulation to classical formulation in finite spatial and temporal limits.

Theory of the Spectral Function of Fermi Polarons at Finite Temperature

We develop a general theory of Fermi polarons at nonzero temperature, including particle-hole excitations of the Fermi sea shakeup to arbitrarily high orders. The exact set of equations of the spectral function is derived by using both Chevy ansatz and diagrammatic approach, and their equivalence is clarified to hold in free space only, with an unregularized infinitesimal interaction strength. The correction to the polaron spectral function arising from two-particle-hole excitations is explicitly examined for an exemplary case of Fermi polarons in one-dimensional optical lattices. We find quantitative improvements at low temperatures with the inclusion of two-particle-hole excitations, in both polaron energies and decay rates. Our exact theory of Fermi polarons with arbitrary orders of particle-hole excitations might be used to better understand the intriguing polaron dynamical responses in two or three dimensions, whether in free space or within lattices.

Thermography of the superfluid transition in a strongly interacting Fermi gas

Heat transport can serve as a fingerprint identifying different states of matter. In a normal liquid, a hotspot diffuses, whereas in a superfluid, heat propagates as a wave called "second sound." Direct imaging of heat transport is challenging, and one usually resorts to detecting secondary effects. In this study, we establish thermography of a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas, whose radio-frequency spectrum provides spatially resolved thermometry with subnanokelvin resolution. The superfluid phase transition was directly observed as the sudden change from thermal diffusion to second-sound propagation and is accompanied by a peak in the second-sound diffusivity. This method yields the full heat and density response of the strongly interacting Fermi gas and therefore all defining properties of Landau's two-fluid hydrodynamics.

Probing Polaron Clouds by Rydberg Atom Spectroscopy

In recent years, Rydberg excitations in atomic quantum gases have become a successful platform to explore quantum impurity problems. A single impurity immersed in a Fermi gas leads to the formation of a polaron, a quasiparticle consisting of the impurity being dressed by the surrounding medium. With a radius of about the Fermi wavelength, the density profile of a polaron cannot be explored using in situ optical imaging techniques. In this Letter, we propose a new experimental measurement technique that enables the in situ imaging of the polaron cloud in ultracold quantum gases. The impurity atom induces the formation of a polaron cloud and is then excited to a Rydberg state. Because of the mesoscopic interaction range of Rydberg excitations, which can be tuned by the principal numbers of the Rydberg state, atoms extracted from the polaron cloud form dimers with the impurity. By performing first principle calculations of the absorption spectrum based on a functional determinant approach, we show how the occupation of the dimer state can be directly observed in spectroscopy experiments and can be mapped onto the density profile of the gas particles, hence providing a direct, real-time, and in situ measure of the polaron cloud.

Repulsive Fermi and Bose Polarons in Quantum Gases

Polaron quasiparticles are formed when a mobile impurity is coupled to the elementary excitations of a many-particle background. In the field of ultracold atoms, the study of the associated impurity problem has attracted a growing interest over the last fifteen years. Polaron quasiparticle properties are essential to our understanding of a variety of paradigmatic quantum many-body systems realized in ultracold atomic gases and in the solid state, from imbalanced Bose–Fermi and Fermi–Fermi mixtures to fermionic Hubbard models. In this topical review, we focus on the so-called repulsive polaron branch, which emerges as an excited many-body state in systems with underlying attractive interactions such as ultracold atomic mixtures, and is characterized by an effective repulsion between the impurity and the surrounding medium. We give a brief account of the current theoretical and experimental understanding of repulsive polaron properties, for impurities embedded in both fermionic and bosonic media, and we highlight open issues deserving future investigations.

Exact Quasiparticle Properties of a Heavy Polaron in BCS Fermi Superfluids

We present the Ramsey response and radio-frequency spectroscopy of a heavy impurity immersed in an interacting Fermi superfluid, using the exact functional determinant approach. We describe the Fermi superfluid through the conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory and investigate the role of the pairing gap on quasiparticle properties revealed by the two spectroscopies. The energy cost for pair breaking prevents Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe that occurs in a noninteracting Fermi gas and allows the existence of polaron quasiparticles in the exactly solvable heavy impurity limit. Hence, we rigorously confirm the remarkable features such as dark continuum, molecule-hole continuum, and repulsive polaron. For a magnetic impurity scattering at finite temperature, we predict additional resonances related to the subgap Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound state, whose positions can be used to measure the superfluid pairing gap. For a nonmagnetic scattering at zero temperature, we surprisingly find undamped repulsive polarons. These exact results might be readily observed in quantum gas experiments with Bose-Fermi mixtures that have a large-mass ratio.

Excitation Spectrum and Superfluid Gap of an Ultracold Fermi Gas

Ultracold atomic gases are a powerful tool to experimentally study strongly correlated quantum many-body systems. In particular, ultracold Fermi gases with tunable interactions have allowed to realize the famous BEC-BCS crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of molecules to a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid of weakly bound Cooper pairs. However, large parts of the excitation spectrum of fermionic superfluids in the BEC-BCS crossover are still unexplored. In this work, we use Bragg spectroscopy to measure the full momentum-resolved low-energy excitation spectrum of strongly interacting ultracold Fermi gases. This enables us to directly observe the smooth transformation from a bosonic to a fermionic superfluid that takes place in the BEC-BCS crossover. We also use our spectra to determine the evolution of the superfluid gap and find excellent agreement with previous experiments and self-consistent T-matrix calculations both in the BEC and crossover regime. However, toward the BCS regime a calculation that includes the effects of particle-hole correlations shows better agreement with our data.

Toward an Automated-Algebra Framework for High Orders in the Virial Expansion of Quantum Matter

The virial expansion provides a non-perturbative view into the thermodynamics of quantum many-body systems in dilute regimes. While powerful, the expansion is challenging as calculating its coefficients at each order n requires analyzing (if not solving) the quantum n-body problem. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of automated algebra methods, which we developed to calculate high-order virial coefficients. The methods are computational but non-stochastic, thus avoiding statistical effects; they are also for the most part analytic, not numerical, and amenable to massively parallel computer architectures. We show formalism and results for coefficients characterizing the thermodynamics (pressure, density, energy, static susceptibilities) of homogeneous and harmonically trapped systems and explain how to generalize them to other observables such as the momentum distribution, Tan contact, and the structure factor.

Initial Dynamics of Quantum Impurities in a Bose–Einstein Condensate

An impurity immersed in a medium constitutes a canonical scenario applicable in a wide range of fields in physics. Though our understanding has advanced significantly in the past decades, quantum impurities in a bosonic environment are still of considerable theoretical and experimental interest. Here, we discuss the initial dynamics of such impurities, which was recently observed in interferometric experiments. Experimental observations from weak to unitary interactions are presented and compared to a theoretical description. In particular, the transition between two initial dynamical regimes dominated by two-body interactions is analyzed, yielding transition times in clear agreement with the theoretical prediction. Additionally, the distinct time dependence of the coherence amplitude in these regimes is obtained by extracting its power-law exponents. This benchmarks our understanding and suggests new ways of probing dynamical properties of quantum impurities.

Universal Aspects of a Strongly Interacting Impurity in a Dilute Bose Condensate

We study the properties of an impurity immersed in a weakly interacting Bose gas, i.e., of a Bose polaron. In the perturbatively tractable limit of weak impurity-boson interactions many of its properties are known to depend only on the scattering length. Here we demonstrate that for strong (unitary) impurity-boson interactions all quasiparticle properties of a heavy Bose polaron, such as its energy, its residue, its Tan's contact, and the number of bosons trapped nearby the impurity, depend on the impurity-boson potential via a single parameter characterizing its range.

Polaron Problems in Ultracold Atoms: Role of a Fermi Sea across Different Spatial Dimensions and Quantum Fluctuations of a Bose Medium

The notion of a polaron, originally introduced in the context of electrons in ionic lattices, helps us to understand how a quantum impurity behaves when being immersed in and interacting with a many-body background. We discuss the impact of the impurities on the medium particles by considering feedback effects from polarons that can be realized in ultracold quantum gas experiments. In particular, we exemplify the modifications of the medium in the presence of either Fermi or Bose polarons. Regarding Fermi polarons we present a corresponding many-body diagrammatic approach operating at finite temperatures and discuss how mediated two- and three-body interactions are implemented within this framework. Utilizing this approach, we analyze the behavior of the spectral function of Fermi polarons at finite temperature by varying impurity-medium interactions as well as spatial dimensions from three to one. Interestingly, we reveal that the spectral function of the medium atoms could be a useful quantity for analyzing the transition/crossover from attractive polarons to molecules in three-dimensions. As for the Bose polaron, we showcase the depletion of the background Bose-Einstein condensate in the vicinity of the impurity atom. Such spatial modulations would be important for future investigations regarding the quantification of interpolaron correlations in Bose polaron problems.

Universal sound diffusion in a strongly interacting Fermi gas

Transport of strongly interacting fermions is crucial for the properties of modern materials, nuclear fission, the merging of neutron stars, and the expansion of the early Universe. Here, we observe a universal quantum limit of diffusivity in a homogeneous, strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas by studying sound propagation and its attenuation through the coupled transport of momentum and heat. In the normal state, the sound diffusivity D monotonically decreases upon lowering the temperature, in contrast to the diverging behavior of weakly interacting Fermi liquids. Below the superfluid transition temperature, D attains a universal value set by the ratio of Planck's constant and the particle mass. Our findings inform theories of fermion transport, with relevance for hydrodynamic flow of electrons, neutrons, and quarks.

Quasiparticle Lifetime of the Repulsive Fermi Polaron

We investigate the metastable repulsive branch of a mobile impurity coupled to a degenerate Fermi gas via short-range interactions. We show that the quasiparticle lifetime of this repulsive Fermi polaron can be experimentally probed by driving Rabi oscillations between weakly and strongly interacting impurity states. Using a time-dependent variational approach, we find that we can accurately model the impurity Rabi oscillations that were recently measured for repulsive Fermi polarons in both two and three dimensions. Crucially, our theoretical description does not include relaxation processes to the lower-lying attractive branch. Thus, the theory-experiment agreement demonstrates that the quasiparticle lifetime is dominated by many-body dephasing within the upper repulsive branch rather than by relaxation from the upper branch itself. Our findings shed light on recent experimental observations of persistent repulsive correlations, and have important consequences for the nature and stability of the strongly repulsive Fermi gas.

In Situ Thermometry of a Cold Fermi Gas via Dephasing Impurities

The precise measurement of low temperatures is a challenging, important, and fundamental task for quantum science. In particular, in situ thermometry is highly desirable for cold atomic systems due to their potential for quantum simulation. Here, we demonstrate that the temperature of a noninteracting Fermi gas can be accurately inferred from the nonequilibrium dynamics of impurities immersed within it, using an interferometric protocol and established experimental methods. Adopting tools from the theory of quantum parameter estimation, we show that our proposed scheme achieves optimal precision in the relevant temperature regime for degenerate Fermi gases in current experiments. We also discover an intriguing trade-off between measurement time and thermometric precision that is controlled by the impurity-gas coupling, with weak coupling leading to the greatest sensitivities. This is explained as a consequence of the slow decoherence associated with the onset of the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe, which dominates the gas dynamics following its local interaction with the immersed impurity.

Radio-Frequency Response and Contact of Impurities in a Quantum Gas

We investigate the radio-frequency spectroscopy of impurities interacting with a quantum gas at finite temperature. In the limit of a single impurity, we show using Fermi's golden rule that introducing (or injecting) an impurity into the medium is equivalent to ejecting an impurity that is initially interacting with the medium, since the "injection" and "ejection" spectral responses are simply related to each other by an exponential function of frequency. Thus, the full spectral information for the quantum impurity is contained in the injection spectral response, which can be determined using a range of theoretical methods, including variational approaches. We use this property to compute the finite-temperature equation of state and Tan contact of the Fermi polaron. Our results for the contact of a mobile impurity are in excellent agreement with recent experiments and we find that the finite-temperature behavior is qualitatively different compared to the case of infinite impurity mass.

Fourth- and Fifth-Order Virial Coefficients from Weak Coupling to Unitarity

In the current era of precision quantum many-body physics, one of the most scrutinized systems is the unitary limit of the nonrelativistic spin-1/2 Fermi gas, due to its simplicity and relevance for atomic, condensed matter, and nuclear physics. The thermodynamics of this strongly correlated system is determined by universal functions which, at high temperatures, are governed by universal virial coefficients b_{n} that capture the effects of the n-body system on the many-body dynamics. Currently, b_{2} and b_{3} are well understood, but the situation is less clear for b_{4}, and no predictions have been made for b_{5}. To answer these open questions, we implement a nonperturbative analytic approach based on the Trotter-Suzuki factorization of the imaginary-time evolution operator, using progressively finer temporal lattice spacings. By means of these factorizations and automated algebra codes, we obtain the interaction-induced change Δb_{n} from weak coupling to unitarity. At unitarity, we find that Δb_{3}=-0.356(4) in agreement with previous results, Δb_{4}=0.062(2), which is in agreement with all previous theoretical estimates but at odds with experimental determinations, and Δb_{5}=0.078(6), which is a prediction. We show the impact of those answers on the density equation of state and Tan contact, and trace their origin back to their polarized and unpolarized components.

Electrical scattering mechanism evolution in un-doped and halogen-doped Bi2O2Se single crystals

Recently the layered oxide semiconductor Bi2O2Se was hotly explored for its ultrahigh mobility and ultrafast photo-response whose physical origins need to be further explored or elucidated. Here, we have grown halogen (Cl, Br, I) doped and un-doped Bi2O2Se single crystals by a melt-solidification method. Comparative electrical transport characterizations and detailed data-analysis substantiate that the electron-electron scattering is the major source of resistivity in un-doped Bi2O2Se crystals; however, in halogen-doped Bi2O2Se crystals, electron-electron scattering is only effective at low temperature (<60 K) and subsequently electron-phonon-interaction scattering is dominated to resistivity. Hall measurement and analysis show that electron concentration of halogen-doped Bi2O2Se (∼1020cm-3) is one-order higher than un-doped one (∼1019cm-3), but the carrier mobility of halogen-doped Bi2O2Se at 2 K (∼102cm2V-1s-1) is reduced by more than two orders than un-doped ones (∼104cm2V-1s-1). Three kinds of relaxation time (due to the impurity scattering, electron-electron scattering and electron-phonon scattering), calculated by linear-response theory and electron-/phonon-dispersion, are in agreement with experimental results quantitatively. The scattering mechanism evolution from sole electron-electron scattering (un-doped Bi2O2Se) to electron-phonon scattering (doped Bi2O2Se) at high temperature (>60 K) is attributed to the net effect of decreased screened Coulomb-interaction and increased Fermi energy in halogen-doped Bi2O2Se. This work may provide clues of physical origins of superior electrical/photoelectrical properties of Bi2O2Se.

Spectral Response and Contact of the Unitary Fermi Gas

We measure radio frequency (rf) spectra of the homogeneous unitary Fermi gas at temperatures ranging from the Boltzmann regime through quantum degeneracy and across the superfluid transition. For all temperatures, a single spectral peak is observed. Its position smoothly evolves from the bare atomic resonance in the Boltzmann regime to a frequency corresponding to nearly one Fermi energy at the lowest temperatures. At high temperatures, the peak width reflects the scattering rate of the atoms, while at low temperatures, the width is set by the size of fermion pairs. Above the superfluid transition, and approaching the quantum critical regime, the width increases linearly with temperature, indicating non-Fermi-liquid behavior. From the wings of the rf spectra, we obtain the contact, quantifying the strength of short-range pair correlations. We find that the contact rapidly increases as the gas is cooled below the superfluid transition.

Variational Approach for Impurity Dynamics at Finite Temperature

We present a general variational principle for the dynamics of impurity particles immersed in a quantum-mechanical medium. By working within the Heisenberg picture and constructing approximate time-dependent impurity operators, we can take the medium to be in any mixed state, such as a thermal state. Our variational method is consistent with all conservation laws and, in certain cases, it is equivalent to a finite-temperature Green's function approach. As a demonstration of our method, we consider the dynamics of heavy impurities that have suddenly been introduced into a Fermi gas at finite temperature. Using approximate time-dependent impurity operators involving only one particle-hole excitation of the Fermi sea, we find that we can successfully model the results of recent Ramsey interference experiments on ^{40}K atoms in a ^{6}Li Fermi gas. We also show that our approximation agrees well with the exact solution for the Ramsey response of a fixed impurity at finite temperature. Our approach paves the way for the investigation of impurities with dynamical degrees of freedom in arbitrary quantum-mechanical mediums.

Observation of Coherent Multiorbital Polarons in a Two-Dimensional Fermi Gas

We report on the experimental observation of multiorbital polarons in a two-dimensional Fermi gas of ^{173}Yb atoms formed by mobile impurities in the metastable ^{3}P_{0} orbital and a Fermi sea in the ground-state ^{1}S_{0} orbital. We spectroscopically probe the energies of attractive and repulsive polarons close to an orbital Feshbach resonance and characterize their coherence by measuring the quasiparticle residue. For all probed interaction parameters, the repulsive polaron is a long-lived quasiparticle with a decay rate more than 2 orders of magnitude below its energy. We formulate a many-body theory, which accurately treats the interorbital interactions in two dimensions and agrees well with the experimental results. Our work paves the way for the investigation of many-body physics in multiorbital ultracold Fermi gases.