A two-component four-fermion system with equal masses, interspecies s-wave scattering length a and vanishing intraspecies interactions under external spherically symmetric harmonic confinement is considered. Using a correlated Gaussian basis set expansion approach, we determine the energies and various structural properties of the energetically lowest-lying gas-like state throughout the crossover for various ranges of the underlying two-body potential. Extrapolating to the zero-range limit, our numerical results show explicitly that the total energy, the trap energy as well as certain aspects of the pair distribution function and of the momentum distribution are related through the so-called integrated contact intensity I(a). Furthermore, it is shown explicitly that the total energy and the trap energy are related through a generalized virial theorem that accounts for a non-zero range.
We study the scissors modes of dipolar boson and fermion gases trapped in a spherically symmetric potential. We use the harmonic oscillator states to solve the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation for bosons and the time-dependent Hartree-Fock equation for fermions. It is pointed out that the scissors modes of bosons and fermions can be of quite different nature.
Using a leading-order semiclassical approximation, we calculate the third- and fourth-order virial coefficients of nonrelativistic spin-1/2 fermions in a harmonic trapping potential in arbitrary spatial dimensions, and as functions of temperature, trapping frequency and coupling strength. Our simple, analytic results for the interaction-induced changes $Δb_3$ and $Δb_4$ agree qualitatively, and in some regimes quantitatively, with previous numerical calculations for the unitary limit of three-dimensional Fermi gases.
We study the finite temperature properties of two-component fermionic atoms trapped in a two-dimensional optical lattice. We apply the self-energy functional approach to the two-dimensional Hubbard model with a harmonic trapping potential, and systematically investigate the thermodynamic properties of this system. We find that entropy and grand potential provide evidence of a crossover between the Mott insulating and metallic phases at certain temperatures. In addition, we find that entropy exhibits a cusp-like anomaly at lower temperatures, suggesting a second or higher order antiferromagneti…
We consider dipolar fermions in a two-dimensional square lattice and a harmonic trapping potential. The anisotropy of the dipolar interaction combined with the lattice leads to transitions between phases with density order of different symmetries. We show that the attractive part of the dipolar interaction results in a superfluid phase which is suppressed by density order. The trapping potential is demonstrated to make the different phases co-exist, forming ring and island structures. The phases with density and superfluid order can overlap forming regions with supersolid order.
We present a coupled pair approach for studying few-body physics in harmonically trapped ultracold gases. The method is applied to a two-component Fermi system of $N$ particles. A stochastically variational gaussian expansion method is applied, focusing on optimization of the two-body correlations present in the strongly interacting, or unitary, limit. The groundstate energy of the four-, six- and eight-body problem with equal spin populations is calculated with high accuracy and minimal computational effort. We also calculate the structural properties of these systems and discuss their implic…
Using the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group method, we calculate transport properties of an interacting Fermi gas in an optical lattice with a confining trap after a sudden displacement of the trap center. In the regime of attractive interactions, the dipolar motion after the displacement can be classified into underdamped oscillations and overdamped relaxations, depending on the interaction strength. These numerical calculations are consistent with experimental results. In the regime of repulsive interactions, we predict a revival of the oscillations of the center of mass wh…
Using numerical simulation based on a density-functional equation for a trapped Fermi super-fluid valid along the BCS-unitarity crossover, we establish robust scaling over many orders of magnitude in the observables of the system as a function of fermion number. This scaling allows to predict the static properties of the system, such as energy, chemical potential, etc., for a large number of fermions, over the crossover, from the knowledge of those for a small number ($\sim 4-10$) of fermions.
We consider a system of non-interacting fermions in one dimension subject to a single-particle potential consisting of (a) a strong optical lattice, (b) a harmonic trap, and (c) uncorrelated on-site disorder. After a quench, in which the center of the harmonic trap is displaced, we study the occupation function of the fermions and the time-evolution of experimental observables. Specifically, we present numerical and analytical results for the post-quench occupation function of the fermions, and analyse the time-evolution of the real-space density profile. Unsurprisingly for a non-interacting (…
We propose and analyze a variational wave function for a population-imbalanced one-dimensional Fermi gas that allows for Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) type pairing correlations among the two fermion species, while also accounting for the harmonic confining potential. In the strongly interacting regime, we find large spatial oscillations of the order parameter, indicative of an FFLO state. The obtained density profiles versus imbalance are consistent with recent experimental results as well as with theoretical calculations based on combining Bethe ansatz with the local density approxi…
To calculate static response properties of a many body system, local density approximation (LDA) can be safely applied. But applicability of LDA is limited for the case of dynamical response functions since dynamics of the system needs to be considered as well. To examine this in the context of cold atoms, we consider a system of non-interacting spin-$1/2$ fermions confined by a harmonic trapping potential. We have calculated a very important response function, the spectral intensity distribution function (SIDF), both exactly and using LDA at zero temperature and compared with each other for d…
Superfluidity is a fascinating phenomenon that, at the macroscopic scale, leads to dissipationless flow and the emergence of vortices. While these macroscopic manifestations of superfluidity are well described by theories that have their origin in Landau's two-fluid model, our microscopic understanding of superfluidity is far from complete. Using analytical and numerical \textit{ab initio} approaches, this paper determines the superfluid fraction and local superfluid density of small harmonically trapped two-component Fermi gases as a function of the interaction strength and temperature. At lo…
We calculate the finite-temperature Tan's contact for N SU(2) fermions, characterized by repulsive contact interaction, trapped in a 1D harmonic confinement within a local density approximation on top of a thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz. The Tan's contact for such a system, as in the homogeneous case, displays a minimum at a very low temperature. By means of an exact canonical ensemble calculation for two fermions, we provide an explicit formula for the contact at very low temperatures that reveals that the minimum is due to the mixing of states with different exchange symmetries. In the unitary r…
We describe the emergence of superfluid phases of ultracold dipolar fermions in optical lattices for two-dimensional systems. Considering the many-body screening of dipolar interactions at intermediate and larger filling factors, we show that several superfluid phases with distinct pairing symmetries naturally arise in the singlet channel: local s-wave $(sl)$, extended s-wave $(se)$, d-wave $(d)$ or time-reversal-symmetry breaking $(sl + se \pm id)$-wave. We obtain the temperature versus filling factor phase diagram and show that d-wave pairing is favored near half-filling, that $(sl + se)$-wa…
We propose a method of encoding a topologically-protected qubit using Majorana fermions in a trapped-ion chain. This qubit is protected against major sources of decoherence, while local operations and measurements can be realized. Furthermore, we show that an efficient quantum interface and memory for arbitrary multiqubit photonic states can be built, encoding them into a set of entangled Majorana-fermion qubits inside cavities.
Using a coarse temporal lattice approximation, we calculate the first few terms of the virial expansion of a three-species fermion system with a three-body contact interaction in $d$ spatial dimensions, both in homogeneous space as well as in a harmonic trapping potential of frequency $ω$. Using the three-body problem to renormalize, we report analytic results for the change in the fourth- and fifth-order virial coefficients $Δb_4$ and $Δb_5$ as functions of $Δb_3$. Additionally, we argue that in the $ω\to 0$ limit the relationship $b_n^\text{T} = n^{-d/2} b_n$ holds between the trapped (T) an…
The emergence of local phases in a trapped two-component Fermi gas in an optical lattice is studied using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We treat temperatures that are comparable or lower than those presently achievable in experiments and large enough systems that both magnetic and paired phases can be detected by inspection of the behavior of suitable short-range correlations. We use the latter to suggest the interaction strength and temperature range at which experimental observation of incipient magnetism and d-wave pairing are more likely and evaluate the relation between entropy and tem…
By generalizing our automated algebra approach from homogeneous space to harmonically trapped systems, we have calculated the fourth- and fifth-order virial coefficients of universal spin-1/2 fermions in the unitary limit, confined in an isotropic harmonic potential. We present results for said coefficients as a function of trapping frequency (or, equivalently, temperature), which compare favorably with previous Monte Carlo calculations (available only at fourth order) as well as with our previous estimates in the untrapped limit (high temperature, low frequency). We use our estimates of the v…
System of a two-flavor mixture of ultra-cold fermions confined in a one-dimensional harmonic trap is studied in the frame of the center of mass. We present a numerical method of obtaining energetic spectra in this frame for an arbitrary mass ratio of fermionic species. We identify a specific invariant encoded in many-body correlations which enable one to determine an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian and to label excitations of the center of mass. The tool presented may be particularly useful in experimental analysis of the interparticle interactions which do not affect the center of mass excitati…
On increasing the coupling strength ($λ$) of a non-Abelian gauge field that induces a generalized Rashba spin-orbit interaction, the topology of the Fermi surface of a homogeneous gas of noninteracting fermions of density $ρ\sim \kf^3$ undergoes a change at a critical value, $λ_T \approx \kf$ [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 84}, 014512 (2011)]. In this paper we analyze how this phenomenon affects the size and shape of a cloud of spin-$\half$ fermions trapped in a harmonic potential such as those used in cold atom experiments. We develop an adiabatic formulation, including the concomitant Pancharatnam-Berry…
We study the collective excitations of polarized single-component quasi-two-dimensional dipolar fermions in an isotropic harmonic trap by solving the collisional Boltzmann-Vlasov (CBV) equation. We study the response to both monopole and quadrupole perturbations of the trap potential and investigate the character of excitations in each case. Simple analytic formulas are provided based on the linearized scaling ansatz and accurate numerical results are obtained by satisfying the first eight moments of the CBV equation. Except for the lowest lying monopole mode that exhibits a negligible damping…
We examine theoretically the visualization of Majorana fermions in a two-dimensional trapped ultracold atomic Fermi gas with spin-orbit coupling. By increasing an external Zeeman field, the trapped gas transits from non-topological to topological superfluid, via a mixed phase in which both types of superfluids coexist. We show that the zero-energy Majorana fermion, supported by the topological superfluid and localized at the vortex core, is clearly visible through (i) the core density and (ii) the local density of states, which are readily measurable in experiment. We present a realistic estim…
Dynamical properties of two-component mass-imbalanced few-fermion systems confined in a one-dimensional harmonic trap following a sudden quench of interactions are studied. It is assumed that initially the system is prepared in the non-interacting ground state and then, after a sudden quench of interactions, the unitary evolution is governed by interacting many-body Hamiltonian. By careful analysis of the evolution of the Loschmidt echo, density distributions of the components, and entanglement entropy between them, the role of mass imbalance and particle number imbalance on the system's evolu…
Motivated by several experimental efforts to understand spin diffusion and transport in ultracold fermionic gases, we study the spin dynamics of initially spin-polarized ensembles of harmonically trapped non-interacting spin-1/2 fermionic atoms, subjected to a magnetic field gradient. We obtain simple analytic expressions for spin observables in the presence of both constant and linear magnetic field gradients, with and without a spin-echo pulse, and at zero and finite temperatures. The analysis shows the relevance of spin-motional coupling in the non-interacting regime where the demagnetizati…
We propose a method of simulating efficiently many-body interacting fermion lattice models in trapped ions, including highly nonlinear interactions in arbitrary spatial dimensions and for arbitrarily distant couplings. We map products of fermionic operators onto nonlocal spin operators and decompose the resulting dynamics in efficient steps with Trotter methods, yielding an overall protocol that employs only polynomial resources. The proposed scheme can be relevant in a variety of fields as condensed-matter or high-energy physics, where quantum simulations may solve problems intractable for cl…
We study harmonically trapped, unpolarized fermion systems with attractive interactions in two spatial dimensions with spin degeneracies Nf = 2 and 4 and N/Nf = 1, 3, 5, and 7 particles per flavor. We carry out our calculations using our recently proposed quantum Monte Carlo method on a nonuniform lattice. We report on the ground-state energy and contact for a range of couplings, as determined by the binding energy of the two-body system, and show explicitly how the physics of the Nf-body sector dominates as the coupling is increased.
Standard lattice formulations of non-relativistic Fermi gases with two spin components suffer from a sign problem in the cases of repulsive contact interactions and attractive contact interactions with spin imbalance. We discuss the nature of this sign problem and the applicability of stochastic quantisation with complex Langevin evolution in both cases. For repulsive interactions, we find that the results converge, using adaptive step size scaling and a Gaussian regulator to modify the lattice action. We present results on density profiles and correlations of a harmonically trapped system in …
We consider the problem of spin-triplet p-wave superfluid pairing with total spin projection $m_s=0$ in atomic Fermi gas across the Feshbach resonance. We allow for imbalanced populations and take into account the effects due to presence of a parabolic trapping potential. Within the mean-field approximation for the one- and two-channel pairing models we show that depending on the distance from the center of a trap at least two superfluid states will have the lowest energy. Superfluid shells which emerge in a trap may have two out of three angular components of the p-wave superfluid order param…
We study systems of few two-component fermions interacting in a Harmonic Oscillator trap. The fermion-fermion interaction is generated in a finite basis with a unitary transformation of the exact two-body spectrum given by the Busch formula. The few-body Schrödinger equation is solved with the formalism of the No-Core Shell Model. We present results for a system of three fermions interacting at unitarity as well as for finite values of the S-wave scattering length $a_2$ and effective range $r_2$. Unitary systems with four and five fermions are also considered. We show that the many-body energi…
From an extensive calculation of static properties of a trapped Fermi superfluid at zero temperature using a density-functional formulation, we demonstrate a universal behavior of its observables, such as energy, chemical potential, radius etc., over the crossover from the BCS limit to unitarity leading to scaling over many orders of magnitude in fermion number. This scaling allows to predict the static properties of the system, with a large number ($\sim 10^5$) of fermions, over the crossover with an error of 1-2%, from the knowledge of those for a small number ($\sim 10$) of fermions.
Analytic higher-order momentum correlation functions associated with the time-of-flight spectroscopy of three ultracold fermionic atoms singly-confined in a linear three-well optical trap are presented, corresponding to the W- and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-type (GHZ) states that belong to characteristic classes of tripartite entanglement and represent the strong-interaction regime captured by a three-site Heisenberg Hamiltonian. The methodology introduced here contrasts with and goes beyond that based on the standard Wick's factorization scheme; it enables determination of both third-order a…
Spatial and momentum correlations are important in the analysis of the quantum states and different phases of trapped ultracold atom systems as a function of the strength of interatomic interactions. Identification and understanding of spin-resolved patterns exhibited in two-point correlations, accessible directly by experiments, are key for uncovering the symmetry and structure of the many-body wave functions of the trapped system. Using the configuration interaction method for exact diagonalization of the many-body Hamiltonian of $N=2-4$ fermionic atoms trapped in single, double, triple, and…
In order to help detecting superfluidity, we theoretically investigate p-wave pairing superfluids in neutral Fermion atom gases confined by a three dimensimentional (3D) harmonic potential. The Ginzburg-Landau framework, which is generic for p-wave superfluids, is used to describe the order parameter spatial structure, or texture characterized by the l-vector both at rest and under rotation. The l-vector configuration is strongly contrained by the boundary condition due to a trap. It is found that the ground state textures exhibit spontaneous supercurrent at rest both cigar and pancake shape t…
We study the spin correlations of a few fermions in a quasi one-dimensional trap. Exact diagonalization calculations demonstrate that repulsive interactions between the two species drives ferromagnetic correlations. The ejection probability of an atom provides an experimental probe of the spin correlations. With more than five atoms trapped, the system approaches the itinerant Stoner limit. Losses to Feshbach molecules are suppressed by the discretization of energy levels when fewer than seven atoms are trapped.
In this article, we investigate the dissipative dynamics of a Fermi gas trapped in a three-site optical lattice exposed to a fermionic environment. The lattice sites admit at most one spin-up and one spin-down particle at a time and its interaction with the fermionic environment cause particles to either be trapped by or expelled from it. It is then shown that apart from each lattice site being populated by at least one particle, spin exchange is observed, which allows the possibility for the system to be used to encrypt information via quantum cryptography. Furthermore, we also observe entang…
The odd fermion at the edge: odd-even staggering in the trapped, unitary Fermi gas
University of Washington（华盛顿大学）；INFN sezione di Torino（都灵意大利国家核物理研究所）；Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Bern（伯尔尼大学爱因斯坦基础物理中心理论物理研究所）
We propose the quantum simulation of a fermion and an antifermion field modes interacting via a bosonic field mode, and present a possible implementation with two trapped ions. This quantum platform allows for the scalable add-up of bosonic and fermionic modes, and represents an avenue towards quantum simulations of quantum field theories in perturbative and nonperturbative regimes.
We study the properties of spin-less non-interacting fermions trapped in a confining potential in one dimension but in the presence of one or more impurities which are modelled by delta function potentials. We use a method based on the single particle Green's function. For a single impurity placed in the bulk, we compute the density of the Fermi gas near the impurity. Our results, in addition to recovering the Friedel oscillations at large distance from the impurity, allow the exact computation of the density at short distances. We also show how the density of the Fermi gas is modified when th…
We study a system of $N$ noninteracting spinless fermions in a confining, double-well potential in one dimension. When the Fermi energy is close to the value of the potential at its local maximum we show that physical properties, such as the average density and the fermion position correlation functions, display a universal behavior that depends only on the local properties of the potential near its maximum. This behavior describes the merging of two Fermi gases, which are disjoint at sufficiently low Fermi energies. We describe this behavior in terms of a new correlation kernel that we comput…
We develop a quantum Monte Carlo method to estimate the ground-state energy of a fermionic many-particle system in the configuration-interaction shell model approach. The fermionic sign problem is circumvented by using a guiding wave function in Fock space. The method provides an upper bound on the ground-state energy whose tightness depends on the choice of the guiding wave function. We argue that the antisymmetric geminal product class of wave functions is a good choice for guiding wave functions. We demonstrate our method for the trapped two-species fermionic cold atom system in the unitary…
We consider $N$ non-interacting fermions in a $2d$ harmonic potential of trapping frequency $ω$ and in a rotating frame at angular frequency $Ω$, with $0<ω- Ω\ll ω$. At zero temperature, the fermions are in the non-degenerate lowest Landau level and their positions are in one to one correspondence with the eigenvalues of an $N\times N$ complex Ginibre matrix. For large $N$, the fermion density is uniform over the disk of radius $\sqrt{N}$ centered at the origin and vanishes outside this disk. We compute exactly, for any finite $N$, the Rényi entanglement entropy of order $q$, $S_q(N,r)$, as we…
For harmonic-trapped atomic systems, we report system-independent non-adiabatic features in the response to interaction ramps. We provide results for several different systems in one, two, and three dimensions: bosonic and fermionic Hubbard models realized through optical lattices, a Bose-Einstein condensate, a fermionic superfluid and a fermi liquid. The deviation from adiabaticity is characterized through the heating or excitation energy produced during the ramp. We find that the dependence of the heat on the ramp time is sensitive to the ramp protocol but has aspects common to all systems c…
We study analytically the Wigner function $W_N({\bf x},{\bf p})$ of $N$ noninteracting fermions trapped in a smooth confining potential $V({\bf x})$ in $d$ dimensions. At zero temperature, $W_N({\bf x},{\bf p})$ is constant over a finite support in the phase space $({\bf x},{\bf p})$ and vanishes outside. Near the edge of this support, we find a universal scaling behavior of $W_N({\bf x},{\bf p})$ for large $N$. The associated scaling function is independent of the precise shape of the potential as well as the spatial dimension $d$. We further generalize our results to finite temperature $T>0$…
The exactly solvable model of two indistinguishable quantum particles (bosons or fermions) confined in a one-dimensional harmonic trap and interacting via finite-range soft-core interaction is presented and many properties of the system are examined. Particularly, it is shown that independently on the potential range, in the strong interaction limit bosonic and fermionic solutions become degenerate. For sufficiently large ranges a specific crystallization appears in the system. The results are compared to predictions of the celebrated Busch {\it et al.} model and those obtained in the Tonks-Gi…
Identification and understanding of the evolution of interference patterns in two-particle momentum correlations as a function of the strength of interatomic interactions are important in explorations of the nature of quantum states of trapped particles. Together with the analysis of two-particle spatial correlations, they offer the prospect of uncovering fundamental symmetries and structure of correlated many-body states, as well as opening vistas into potential control and utilization of correlated quantum states as quantum information resources. With the use of the second-order density matr…
We study $N$ spinless fermions in their ground state confined by an external potential in one dimension with long range interactions of the general Calogero-Sutherland type. For some choices of the potential this system maps to standard random matrix ensembles for general values of the Dyson index $β$. In the fermion model $β$ controls the strength of the interaction, $β=2$ corresponding to the noninteracting case. We study the quantum fluctuations of the number of fermions ${\cal N}_{\cal D}$ in a domain $\cal{D}$ of macroscopic size in the bulk of the Fermi gas. We predict that for general $…
We analyze a gas of noninteracting fermions confined to a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential, with the aim of distinguishing between two proposed definitions of the thermodynamic entropy in the microcanonical ensemble, namely the standard Boltzmann entropy and the Gibbs (or volume) entropy. The distinction between these two definitions is crucial for systems with an upper bound on allowed energy levels, where the Boltzmann definition can lead to the notion of negative absolute temperature. Although negative temperatures do not exist for the system of fermions studied here, we still …
In these two papers, we solve the N body 1D harmonically trapped spinless Boson or spin 1/2 Fermions with repulsive delta function interaction in the limit $N\to \infty$.
We establish an exact mapping between (i) the equilibrium (imaginary time) dynamics of non-interacting fermions trapped in a harmonic potential at temperature $T=1/β$ and (ii) non-intersecting Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) particles constrained to return to their initial positions after time $β$. Exploiting the determinantal structure of the process we compute the universal correlation functions both in the bulk and at the edge of the trapped Fermi gas. The latter corresponds to the top path of the non-intersecting OU particles, and leads us to introduce and study the time-periodic Airy$_2$ process,…
We consider $N$ non-interacting fermions in an isotropic $d$-dimensional harmonic trap. We compute analytically the cumulative distribution of the maximal radial distance of the fermions from the trap center at zero temperature. While in $d=1$ the limiting distribution (in the large $N$ limit), properly centered and scaled, converges to the squared Tracy-Widom distribution of the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble in Random Matrix Theory, we show that for all $d>1$, the limiting distribution converges to the Gumbel law. These limiting forms turn out to be universal, i.e., independent of the details of …
