Pairing Correlations across the Superfluid Phase Transition in the Unitary Fermi Gas

Journal Article · Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.090604· OSTI ID:1799991

Jensen, S. ^[1]; Gilbreth, C.  N. ^[2]; Alhassid, Y. ^[3]

---

1. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States); OSTI
2. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
3. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)

In the two-component Fermi gas with a contact interaction, a pseudogap regime can exist at temperatures between the superfluid critical temperature $$T_c$$ and a temperature $$T^\ast > T_c$$. This regime is characterized by pairing correlations without superfluidity. However, in the unitary limit of infinite scattering length, the existence of this regime is still debated. To help address this, we have applied finite-temperature auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFMC) methods to study the thermodynamics of the superfluid phase transition and signatures of the pseudogap in the spin-balanced homogeneous unitary Fermi gas. We present results at finite filling factor $$\textit{ν}$$ ≃ 0.06 for the condensate fraction, an energy-staggering pairing gap, the spin susceptibility, and the heat capacity, and compare them to experimental data when available. In contrast to previous AFMC simulations, our model space consists of the complete first Brillouin zone of the lattice, and our calculations are performed in the canonical ensemble of fixed particle number. The canonical ensemble AFMC framework enables the calculation of a model-independent gap, providing direct information on pairing correlations without the need for numerical analytic continuation. We use finite-size scaling to estimate $$T_c$$ at the corresponding filling factor. In this work, we find that the energy-staggering pairing gap vanishes above $$T_c$$, showing no pseudogap effects, and that the spin susceptibility shows a substantially reduced signature of a spin gap compared to previously reported AFMC simulations.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; FG02-00ER41132; FG02-91ER40608; SC0019521
• OSTI ID: 1799991
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1602385
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 124; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Physics