Recent experiments with ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices have provided a tuneable and clean realization of the attractive Hubbard model (AHM). In view of this, several physical properties may be thoroughly studied across the crossover between weak (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer, BCS) and strong (Bose-Einstein condensation, BEC) couplings. Here we report on extensive determinant Quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) studies of the AHM on a square lattice, from which several different quantities have been calculated and should be useful as a roadmap to experiments. We have obtained a detailed phase diagram for the critical superconducting temperature, $T_c$, in terms of the band filling, $\ave{n}$, and interaction strength, $U$, from which we pinpoint a somewhat wide region $|U|/t \approx 5 \pm 1$ ($t$ is the hopping amplitude) and $\ave{n} \approx 0.79 \pm 0.09$ leading to a maximum $T_c \approx 0.16 t$. Two additional temperature scales, namely pairing, $T_p$, and degeneracy, $T_d$, have been highlighted: the former sets the scale for pair formation (believed to be closely related to the scale for the gap of spin excitations in cuprates), while the latter sets the scale for dominant quantum effects. Our DQMC data for the distribution of doubly occupied sites, for the momentum distribution function, and for the quasiparticle weight show distinctive features on both sides of the BCS-BEC crossover, being also suggestive of an underlying crossover between Fermi- and non-Fermi liquid behaviors.
We observe a long-lived solitary wave in a superfluid Fermi gas of $^6$Li atoms after phase-imprinting. Tomographic imaging reveals the excitation to be a solitonic vortex, oriented transverse to the long axis of the cigar-shaped atom cloud. The precessional motion of the vortex is directly observed, and its period is measured as a function of the chemical potential in the BEC-BCS crossover. The long period and the correspondingly large ratio of the inertial to the bare mass of the vortex are in good agreement with estimates based on superfluid hydrodynamics that we derive here using the known…
We investigate the quantum and thermal phase diagram of fermionic polar molecules loaded in a bilayer trapping potential with perpendicular dipole moment. We use both a BCS theory approach that is most realiable at weak-coupling and a strong-coupling approach that considers the two-body bound dimer states with one molecules in each layer as the relevant degree of freedom. The system ground state is a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of dimer bound states in the low density limit and a paired superfluid (BCS) state in the high density limit. At zero temperature, the intralayer repulsion is found …
We study the single-plane-wave Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell (LOFF) states for BCS--Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover at general temperatures $T$. Because we include the important effects of noncondensed pairs, our $T \neq 0$ phase diagrams are different from those reported in earlier work. We find that generalized LOFF phases may be the ground state for a wide range of (weak through moderately strong) interactions, including the unitary regime. However, these LOFF phases are readily destroyed by non-zero $T$.
The physics of the crossover between weak-coupling Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) and strong-coupling Bose-Einstein-condensate (BEC) limits gives a unified framework of quantum bound (superfluid) states of interacting fermions. This crossover has been studied in the ultracold atomic systems, but is extremely difficult to be realized for electrons in solids. Recently, the superconducting semimetal FeSe with a transition temperature $T_{\rm c}=8.5$ K has been found to be deep inside the BCS-BEC crossover regime. Here we report experimental signatures of preformed Cooper pairing in FeSe below $T…
It is shown that a cluster expansion technique, which is usually applied in the high-temperature regime to calcutate virial coefficients, can be applied to evaluate the superfluid transition temperature of the BCS-BEC crossover à la Lee and Yang. The transition temperature is identified with the emergence of the singularity in the sum of a certain infinite series of cluster functions. In the weak-coupling limit, we reproduce the Thouless criterion and the number equation of Nozières and Schmitt-Rink, and hence the transition temperature of the BCS theory. In the strong-coupling limit, we repro…
By using a Path Integral formalism, we study the fluctuating fields in the order parameter for a 3D uniform Fermi gas at T<Tc. The BCS-BEC crossover condition is included into the analysis in the framework of the usual s-wave scattering approximation. The general expressions for the temperature dependence of the partition function and the quadratic average in the fluctuations fields are explicitly established in terms of the BCS-Gor'kov correlation propagators.
We determine the size of the critical region of the superfluid transition in the BCS-BEC crossover of a three-dimensional fermion gas, using a renormalization-group approach to a bosonic theory of pairing fluctuations. For the unitary Fermi gas, we find a sizable critical region $[T_G^-,T_G^+]$, of order $T_c$, around the transition temperature $T_c$ with a pronounced asymmetry: $|T_G^+-T_c|/|T_G^--T_c|\sim8$. The critical region is strongly suppressed on the BCS side of the crossover but remains important on the BEC side.
Theoretical predictions for the BCS-BEC crossover of trapped Fermi atoms are compared with recent experimental results for the density profiles of $^6$Li. The calculations rest on a single theoretical approach that includes pairing fluctuations beyond mean field. Excellent agreement with experimental results is obtained. Theoretical predictions for the zero-temperature chemical potential and gap at the unitarity limit are also found to compare extremely well with Quantum Monte Carlo simulations and with recent experimental results.
The subject of BCS - Bose Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover is particularly exciting because of its realization in ultracold Fermi gases and its possible relevance to high temperature superconductors. In the paper we review that body of theoretical work on this subject which represents a natural extension of the seminal papers by Leggett and by Nozieres and Schmitt-Rink (NSR). The former addressed only the ground state, now known as the "BCS-Leggett" wave-function and the key contributions of the latter pertain to calculations of the superfluid transition temperature $T_c$. These two paper…
The work by Soares et al. [Phys. Rev. B 65, 174506 (2002)] investigates the BCS-BE crossover for d-wave pairing in the 2-dimensional attractive Hubbard model. Contrary to their claims, we found that a non-pairing region does not exist in the density vs coupling phase diagram. The gap parameter at T=0, as obtained by solving analytically as well as numerically the BCS equations, is in fact finite for any non-zero density and coupling, even in the weak-coupling regime.
The crossover from Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductivity to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is difficult to realize in quantum materials because, unlike in ultracold atoms, one cannot tune the pairing interaction. We realize the BCS-BEC crossover in a nearly compensated semimetal Fe$_{1+y}$Se$_x$Te$_{1-x}$ by tuning the Fermi energy, $ε_F$, via chemical doping, which permits us to systematically change $Δ/ ε_F$ from 0.16 to 0.5 were $Δ$ is the superconducting (SC) gap. We use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to measure the Fermi energy, the SC gap and characteristic chang…
In this paper we present predictions for thermodynamic and transport properties of a BCS Bose-Einstein crossover theory, below Tc, which theory satisfies the reasonable constraints that it yield (i) the Leggett ground state and (ii) BCS theory at weak coupling and all temperatures. The nature of the strong coupling limit is inferred, along with the behavior of the Knight shift, superfluid density, and specific heat. Comparisons with existing data on short coherence length superconductors, such as organic and high Tc systems, are presented, which provide some support for the present picture.
We report quantum Monte Carlo evidence of the existence of large gap superfluidity in electron-hole double layers over wide density ranges. The superfluid parameters evolve from normal state to BEC with decreasing density, with the BCS state restricted to a tiny range of densities due to the strong screening of Coulomb interactions, which causes the gap to rapidly become large near the onset of superfluidity. The superfluid properties exhibit similarities to ultracold fermions and iron-based superconductors, suggesting an underlying universal behavior of BCS-BEC crossovers in pairing systems.
This report adresses topics and questions of common interest in the fields of ultra-cold gases and nuclear physics in the context of the BCS-BEC crossover. The BCS-BEC crossover has recently been realized experimentally, and essentially in all of its aspects, with ultra-cold Fermi gases. This realization, in turn, has raised the interest of the nuclear physics community in the crossover problem, since it represents an unprecedented tool to test fundamental and unanswered questions of nuclear many-body theory. Here, we focus on the several aspects of the BCS-BEC crossover, which are of broad jo…
The strongly-correlated regime of the BCS-BEC crossover can be realized by diluting a system of two-component fermions with a short-range attractive interaction. We investigate this system via a novel continuous-space-time diagrammatic determinant Monte Carlo method and determine the universal curve $T_c/ε_F$ for the transition temperature between the normal and the superfluid states as a function of the scattering length with the maximum on the BEC side. At unitarity, we confirm that $T_c/ε_F = 0.152(7)$.
We have considered the BCS-BEC crossover at T=0 in the framework of a lattice fermion model (the extended Hubbard model). We have analyzed the case of on-site hard core repulsion ($U=\infty$) and intersite attraction ($W<0$) in a 3D system with extended s-wave pairing symmetry. The mechanisms of density-driven and attraction-strength-driven crossover have been analyzed. We have obtained the ground state phase diagram. The analyzed quantities are: chemical potential, order parameter, coherence length and fraction of condensed particles.
We propose a scheme where strongly correlated photons generated inside a hollow-core one-dimensional fiber filled with two cold atomic species can be used to simulate the BCS-BEC crossover. We first show how stationary light-matter excitations (polaritons) in the system can realize an optically tunable two component Bose-Hubbard model, and then analyze the optical parameters regime necessary to generate an effective Fermi-Hubbard model of photons exhibiting Cooper pairing. The characteristic correlated phases of the system can be efficiently observed due to the {\it in situ} accessibility of t…
We study the superconducting transition in a two-dimensional electron gas with strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We assume low electron density, such that only the majority spin band participates in the transition. We show that the superconducting transition follows either the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), or the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) scenarios, depending on the position of the chemical potential with respect to the bottom of the majority band, and the strength of the Coulomb repulsion between electrons. Hence, the BEC-BCS crossover in this system can be driven either by the cha…
We study the crossover of a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi gas trapped in the radial plane from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) regime to the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) regime by crossing a wide Feshbach resonance. We consider two effective two-dimensional Hamiltonians within the mean-field level, and calculate the zero-temperature cloud size and number density distribution. For a model 1 Hamiltonian with renormalized atom-atom interaction, we observe a constant cloud size for arbitrary detunings. For a model 2 Hamiltonian with renormalized interactions between atoms and dressed molecul…
A crossover between the Bose Einstein condensation (BEC) and BCS superconducting state is described topologically in the chiral symmetric fermion system with attractive interaction. Using a local Z_2 Berry phase, we found a quantum phase transition between the BEC and BCS phases without accompanying the bulk gap closing.
We investigate the zero-temperature BCS to Bose-Einstein crossover at the mean-field level, by driving it with the attractive potential and the particle density.We emphasize specifically the role played by the particle density in this crossover.Three different interparticle potentials are considered for the continuum model in three spatial dimensions, while both s- and d-wave solutions are analyzed for the attractive (extended) Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice. For this model the peculiar behavior of the crossover for the d-wave solution is discussed.In particular, in the stro…
The reason behind the discrepancy between the phase diagrams of our earlier work [1] and the comment of Sheehy and Radzihovsky [2] is discussed. We show that, in contrast to what is claimed in [2], the requirement of positive susceptibility is sufficient to rule out states that are local maximum of the free energy (as a function of the order parameter $Δ$
We have demonstrated that it is possible to access a crossover scenario starting with a weak coupling (BCS) d-wave superconductor to a strongly coupled Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) phase as the exchange interaction is tuned in a two dimensional system described by a t-J-U model via numerically solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations. While in the extreme dilute limit, the electronic pairing phenomena is independent of the Coulomb repulsion, U, the superconductivity depends on U, and so does the crossover. Further, the effect of variation in the carrier density on the BCS-BEC crossov…
We examine the groundstate properties of the crossover between BCS superconductivity and Bose Einstein condensation within a model which exhibits $d_{x^{2} - y^{2}}$ pairing symmetry. We compare results for zero temperature with known features of s-wave systems and show that bosonic degrees of freedom are likely to emerge only in the dilute limit. We relate the change in properties of the groundstate as a function of density to the effect of the exclusion principle and show that the one particle distribution function undergoes a significant change when bosonic behavior appears.
We provide an analytic solution for the mean-field equations and for the relevant physical quantities at the Gaussian level, in terms of the complete elliptic integrals of the first and second kinds, for the crossover problem from BCS superconductivity to Bose-Einstein condensation of a three-dimensional system of free fermions interacting via an attractive contact potential at zero temperature. This analytic solution enables us to follow the evolution between the two limits in a particularly simple and transparent way, as well as to verify the absence of singularities during the evolution.
We use the functional renormalization group approach with partial bosonization in the particle-particle channel to study the effect of order parameter fluctuations on the BCS-BEC crossover of superfluid fermions in three dimensions. Our approach is based on a new truncation of the vertex expansion where the renormalization group flow of bosonic two-point functions is closed by means of Dyson-Schwinger equations and the superfluid order parameter is related to the single particle gap via a Ward identity. We explicitly calculate the chemical potential, the single-particle gap, and the superfluid…
The BCS-BEC crossover is studied in a systematic way in the broken-symmetry phase between zero temperature and the critical temperature. This study bridges two regimes where quantum and thermal fluctuations are, respectively, important. The theory is implemented on physical grounds, by adopting a fermionic self-energy in the broken-symmetry phase that represents fermions coupled to superconducting fluctuations in weak coupling and to bosons described by the Bogoliubov theory in strong coupling. This extension of the theory beyond mean field proves important at finite temperature, to connect wi…
We outline a microscopic approach to the superconducting fluctuations and pairing correlations in the attractive Hubbard model above Tc, using the functional integral method. A crossover from BCS superconductivity to Bose condensation of preformed pairs is studied by constructing the appropriate Ginzburg-Landau functionals. The differences between the lattice and the continuum models are discussed. The case of quasi-two-dimensional superconductors as well as the model with non-local pairing interaction are also examined. The effects of gaussian fluctuations of the order parameter are analyzed …
We have analyzed a single vortex at T=0 in a 3D superfluid atomic Fermi gas across a Feshbach resonance. On the BCS side, the order parameter varies on two scales: $k_{F}^{-1}$ and the coherence length $ξ$, while only variation on the scale of $ξ$ is seen away from the BCS limit. The circulating current has a peak value $j_{max}$ which is a non-monotonic function of $1/k_F a_s$ implying a maximum critical velocity $\sim v_F$ at unitarity. The number of fermionic bound states in the core decreases as we move from the BCS to BEC regime. Remarkably, a bound state branch persists even on the BEC s…
We determine the effects on the BCS-BEC crossover of the energy dependence of the effective two-body interaction, which at low energies is determined by the effective range. To describe interactions with an effective range of either sign, we consider a single-channel model with a two-body interaction having an attractive square well and a repulsive square barrier. We investigate the two-body scattering properties of the model, and then solve the Eagles-Leggett equations for the zero temperature crossover, determining the momentum dependent gap and the chemical potential self-consistently. From…
We present a stability analysis on a driven-dissipative electron-hole condensate in the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer)-BEC (Bose-Einstein-condensation)-crossover region. Extending the combined BCS-Leggett theory with the generalized random phase approximation (GRPA) to the non-equilibrium case by employing the Keldysh formalism, we show that the pumping-and-decay of carriers causes a depairing effect on excitons. This phenomenon gives rise to an attractive interaction between excitons in the BEC regime, as well as a supercurrent that anomalously flows anti-parallel to $\nabla θ({\bf r})$ (whe…
Pair fluctuation theory has been used to study the crossover from the weak coupling BCS theory to the strong coupling Bose Einstein Condensation. The effect of fluctuations has been studied over the whole crossover regime. It has been shown that the pair fluctuations are enhanced considerably in both two and three dimensions and hence mean field theory is inadequate to study the physical properties in this regime. A self consistent scheme for calculating the pair susceptibility is given.
Using the field-theoretical methods we studied the evolution from BCS description of a non-Fermi superconductor to that of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in one loop approximation. We showed that the repulsive interaction between composite bosons is determined by the exponent $α$ of the Anderson propagator in a two dimensional model. For $\a\neq 0$ the crossover is also continous and for $\a=0$ we obtain the case of the Fermi liquid.
A Fermi liquid with weak attractive interaction undergoes a BCS transition to a superconductor with reducing temperature. With increasing interaction strength, the thermal transition is progressively modified as the high temperature `metallic' phase develops a pseudogap due to pairing fluctuations and the resistivity above T_c shows insulating behaviour. The crossover to insulating character occurs much before the system can be considered to be in the BEC regime of preformed fermion pairs. We use a new Monte Carlo tool to map out the BCS-BEC crossover in the attractive Hubbard model on large t…
We act on the suggestion that an excitonic insulator state might separate---at very low temperatures---a semimetal from a semiconductor and ask for the nature of these transitions. Based on the analysis of electron-hole pairing in the extended Falicov-Kimball model, we show that tuning the Coulomb attraction between both species, a continuous crossover between a BCS-like transition of Cooper-type pairs and a Bose-Einstein condensation of preformed tightly-bound excitons might be achieved in a solid-state system. The precursor of this crossover in the normal state might cause the transport anom…
We present a unified theory of luminescence spectra for highly excited semiconductors, which is applicable both to the electron-hole BCS state and to the exciton Bose-Einstein condensate. The crossover behavior between electron-hole BCS state and exciton Bose-Einstein condensate clearly manifests itself in the calculated luminescence spectra. The analysis is based on the Bethe-Salpeter equation combined with the generalized random-phase-approximation, which enables us to consider the multiple Coulomb scattering and the quantum fluctuation associated with the center-of-mass motion of electron-h…
We discuss the quantum phase transition that separates a vacuum state with fully-gapped fermion spectrum from a vacuum state with topologically-protected Fermi points (gap nodes). In the context of condensed-matter physics, such a quantum phase transition with Fermi point splitting may occur for a system of ultracold fermionic atoms in the region of the BEC-BCS crossover, provided Cooper pairing occurs in the non-s-wave channel. For elementary particle physics, the splitting of Fermi points may lead to CPT violation, neutrino oscillations, and other phenomena.
