We consider a mixture of single-component bosonic and fermionic atoms in an array of coupled one-dimensional "tubes". For an attractive Bose-Fermi interaction, we show that the system exhibits phase separation instead of the usual collapse. Moreover, above a critical inter-tube hopping, all first-order instabilities disappear in both attractive and repulsive mixtures. The possibility of suppressing instabilities in this system suggests a route towards the realization of paired phases, including a superfluid of p-wave pairs unique to the coupled-tube system, and quantum critical phenomena.
The route toward a Bose-Einstein condensate of dipolar molecules requires the ability to efficiently associate dimers of different chemical species and transfer them to the stable rovibrational ground state. Here, we report on recent spectroscopic measurements of two weakly bound molecular levels and newly observed narrow d-wave Feshbach resonances. The data are used to improve the collisional model for the Bose-Bose mixture 41K87Rb, among the most promising candidates to create a molecular dipolar BEC.
We study the ground states of one-dimensional Bose-Bose mixtures under harmonic confinement. As we vary the inter-species coupling strength up to the limit of infinite repulsion, we observe a generalized, composite-fermionization crossover. The initially coexisting phases demix as a whole (for weak intra-species interactions) and separate on an atomic level (for strong intra-species repulsion). By symmetry, the two components end up with strongly overlapping profiles, albeit sensitive to symmetry-breaking perturbations. Different pathways emerge in case the two components have different atom n…
We produce a heteronuclear quantum degenerate mixture of two bosonic species, $^{87}$Rb and $^{41}$K, in a three-dimensional optical lattice. On raising the lattice barriers, we observe the disapperance of the inference pattern of the heavier $^{87}$Rb, shifting toward shallower lattice depths in the presence of a minor fraction of $^{41}$K. This effect is sizable and requires only a marginal overlap between the two species. We compare our results with similar findings reported for Fermi-Bose mixtures and discuss the interpretation scenarios proposed to date, arguing that the explanation may b…
We study fermionic superfluidity in a boson-single-species-fermion cold atom mixture. We argue that apart from the standard p-wave fermion pairing mediated by the phonon field of the boson gas, the system also exhibits s-wave pairing with the anomalous correlator being an odd function of time or frequency. We show that such a superfluid phase can have a much higher transition temperature than the p-wave and may exist for sufficiently strong couplings between fermions and bosons. These conditions for odd-frequency pairing are favorable close to the value of the coupling at which the mixture pha…
We consider a mixture of single-component bosonic and fermionic atoms with an interspecies interaction that is varied using a Feshbach resonance. By performing a mean-field analysis of a two-channel model, which describes both narrow and broad Feshbach resonances, we find an unexpectedly rich phase diagram at zero temperature: Bose-condensed and non-Bose-condensed phases form a variety of phase-separated states that are accompanied by both critical and tricritical points. We discuss the implications of our results for the experimentally observed collapse of Bose-Fermi mixtures on the attractiv…
We study the ground-state properties of mixtures of strongly interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. Applying a mean-field approximation to the Hubbard model for Bose-Bose mixtures, we calculate the densities and superfluid order parameters for both species. Due to the repulsive interaction between the two species, the system exhibits phase separation. First, in the extreme limit of the zero-hopping case, we derive analytical expressions for the phase boundaries. In particular, we derive the conditions for phase separation in the Mott insulator phase. We find that the conditions for t…
We investigate the zero-temperature properties of a superfluid Bose-Fermi mixture by introducing a set of coupled Galilei-invariant nonlinear Schrödinger equations valid from weak-coupling to unitarity. The Bose dynamics is described by a Gross-Pitaevskii-type equation including beyond-mean-field corrections possessing the correct weak-coupling and unitarity limits. The dynamics of the two-component Fermi superfluid is described by a density-functional equation including beyond-mean-field terms with correct weak-coupling and unitarity limits. The present set of equations is equivalent to the e…
Boson-fermion pairing is considered in a discrete environment of bosons and fully spin-polarized fermions, coupled via an attractive Bose-Fermi Hubbard Hamiltonian in one dimension. The results of the T-matrix approximation for particles of equal mass and at double half filling are compared with the results of exact diagonalization and with Quantum Monte Carlo results. Satisfactory agreement for most quantities is found. The appearance of a stable, weak-coupling pairing mode is also confirmed.
We control the interspecies interaction in a two-species atomic quantum mixture by tuning the magnetic field at a Feshbach resonance. The mixture is composed by fermionic 40K and bosonic 87Rb. We observe effects of the large attractive and repulsive interaction energy across the resonance, such as collapse or a reduced spatial overlap of the mixture, and we accurately locate the resonance position and width. Understanding and controlling instabilities in this mixture opens the way to a variety of applications, including formation of heteronuclear molecular quantum gases.
We write down the basic equations of Fermi-liquid theory for mixtures of fermions and bosons, an example being 3He-4He mixtures at low temperatures. Basically the theory is identical to the one derived by Khalatnikov, but it is derived in a different way, and includes more discussion. A simplifying transformation of the equations is found where the coupling of the normal and superfluid components appears in a simple form. The boundary conditions are discussed.
We consider the formation of bright solitons in a mixture of Bose and Fermi degenerate gases confined in a three-dimensional elongated harmonic trap. The Bose and Fermi atoms are assumed to effectively attract each other whereas bosonic atoms repel each other. Strong enough attraction between bosonic and fermionic components can change the character of the interaction within the bosonic cloud from repulsive to attractive making thus possible the generation of bright solitons in the mixture. On the other hand, such structures might be in danger due to the collapse phenomenon existing in attract…
A model of two 1D ideal Bose gases A and B with strong AB attractions induced by a p-wave AB Feshbach resonance is studied. The model is solved exactly by a Bose-Bose duality mapping, and it is shown that there is no A-component or B-component Bose-Einstein condensation and no AB-pair off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), but both AA-pair and BB-pair ODLRO. After generalization by adding even-wave AA and BB repulsion and reducing the strength of the odd-wave AB attraction by Feshbach resonance detuning, a quantum phase transition occurs between a phase with AB contact nodes and one with no su…
We study the stability of the dilute Bose-Fermi and Bose-Bose mixtures with repulsive interactions in one and two dimensions in terms of the renormalization group. For the Bose-Fermi mixture, we show that the uniform mixture is stable against de-mixing in the dilute limit. For the Bose-Bose mixture, we give the stability conditions in the dilute limit. As a byproduct, we also calculate the critical temperature for the superfluid phase of the two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixture in the extremely dilute limit.
We investigate the effect of different mass of a Bose- and a Fermi-particle on the collective oscillations of the degenerate boson-fermion mixtures. In particular we consider the monopole and the quadrupole modes of the oscillations and study their characters and the frequencies by using variational-sum-rule approach. We find that for both the modes there exists a critical value of the ratio of boson-fermion mass below and above which the character and the frequency of the respective modes are significantly different.
We have considered one-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixture with equal densities and unequal masses using numerical density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). For the mass ratio of K-Rb mixture and attraction between bosons and fermions, we determined the phase diagram. For weak boson-boson interactions, there is a direct transition between two-component Luttinger liquid and collapsed phases as the boson-fermion attraction is increased. For strong enough boson-boson interactions, we find an intermediate "paired" phase, which is a single-component Luttinger liquid of composite particles. We investi…
We consider the phase separation of a trapped atomic mixture of fermions with unequal spin populations near a Feshbach resonance. In particular, we determine the density profile of the two spin states and compare with the recent experiments of Partridge et al. (cond-mat/0511752). Overall we find quite good agreement. We identify the remaining discrepancies and pose them as open problems.
We investigate theoretically the behavior of a one-dimensional interacting Bose-Fermi mixture with equal masses and equal repulsive interactions between atoms at finite temperature in the scheme of thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. Combining the Yang-Yang thermodynamic formalism with local-density approximation in a harmonic trap, we calculate the density distribution of bosons and fermions numerically by treating the radially and axially excited states as discrete and continuous ones, respectively. Our result from exactly solvable solutions may be used as a touchstone for one-dimensional interactin…
We show that the electron-like and photon-like excitations may exist in a three-dimensional Bose-Fermi Hubbard model describing ultracold Bose-Fermi atom mixtures in optical lattices. In a Mott insulating phase of the Bose atoms, these excitations are stabilized by an induced repulsive interaction between 'electrons' if the Fermi atoms are nearly half filling. We suggest to create 'external electric field' so that the electron-like excitation can be observed by measuring the linear density-density response of the 'electron' gas to the 'external field' in a time-of-flight experiment of the mixt…
We test a non equilibrium approach to study the behavior of a Bose-Fermi mixture of alkali atoms in the presence of a Feshbach resonance between bosons and fermions. To this end we derive the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) equations of motion for, the interacting system. This approach has proven very successful in the study of resonant systems composed of Bose particles and Fermi particles. However, when applied to a Bose-Fermi mixture, the HFB theory fails to identify even the correct binding energy of molecules in the appropriate limit. Through a more rigorous analysis we are able to ascribe …
We develop a pairing mean-field theory to describe the quantum dynamics of the dissociation of molecular Bose-Einstein condensates into their constituent bosonic or fermionic atoms. We apply the theory to one, two, and three-dimensional geometries and analyze the role of dimensionality on the atom production rate as a function of the dissociation energy. As well as determining the populations and coherences of the atoms, we calculate the correlations that exist between atoms of opposite momenta, including the column density correlations in 3D systems. We compare the results with those of the u…
Motivated by the recent experiments on Bose-Einstein mixtures with tunable interactions we study repulsive weakly interacting Bose mixtures at finite temperature. We obtain phase diagrams using Hartree-Fock theory which are directly applicable to experimentally trapped systems. Almost all features of the diagrams can be characterized using simple physical insights. Our work reveals two surprising effects which are dissimilar to a system at zero temperature. First of all, no pure phases exist, that is, at each point in the trap, particles of both species are always present. Second, even for ver…
We develop a strong-coupling theory for the superfluidity of fermion pairing phase in a Bose-Fermi mixture. Dynamical screening, self-energy renormalization, and a pairing gap function are included self-consistently within the adiabatic limit (i.e., the phonon velocity is much smaller than the Fermi velocity). An analytical solution for the transition temperature (Tc) is derived within reasonable approximations. Using typical parameters of a 40K-87Rb mixture, we find that the calculated Tc is several times larger than that obtained in the weak coupling theory, and can be up to several percents…
We study the transition to fermion pair superfluidity in a mixture of interacting bosonic and fermionic atoms. The fermion interaction induced by the bosons and the dynamical screening of the condensate phonons due to fermions are included using the nonperturbative Hamiltonian flow equations. We determine the bosonic spectrum near the transition towards phase separation and find that the superfluid transition temperature may be increased substantially due to phonon damping.
We study static properties of attractively interacting Bose-Fermi mixtures of uniform atomic gases at zero temperature. Using Green's function formalism we calculate boson-fermion scattering amplitude and fermion self-energy in the medium to lowest order of the hole line expansion. We study ground state energy and pressure as functions of the scattering length for a few values of the boson-fermion mass ratio $m_b/m_f$ and the number ratio $N_b/N_f$. We find that the attractive contribution to energy is greatly enhanced for small values of the mass ratio. We study the role of the Bose-Fermi pai…
We discuss on the pairing mechanism of fermions with mismatch in their fermi momenta due to a mass asymmetry. Using a variational ansatz for the ground state we also discuss the BCS -BEC crossover of this system. It is shown that the breached pairing solution with a single fermi surface is stable in the BEC regime. We also include the temperatures effect on the fermion pairing within an approximation that is valid for temperatures much below the critical temperature.
We study the dipole collective oscillations in the bose-fermi mixture using a dynamical time-dependent approach, which are formulated with the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation and the Vlasov equation. We find big difference in behaviors of fermion oscillation between the time-dependent approach and usual approaches such as the random-phase approximation and the sum-rule approach. While the bose gas oscillates monotonously, the fermion oscillation shows a beat and a damping. When the amplitude is not minimal, the dipole oscillation of the fermi gas cannot be described with a simple cent…
