Luther-Emery Phase and Atomic-Density Waves in a Trapped Fermion Gas

Journal Article · Fri Jan 19 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.98.030404· OSTI ID:20861609

Xianlong, Gao; Rizzi, M; Polini, Marco; Tosi, M P ^[1]; Fazio, Rosario ^[2]; Campo, Jr, V L ^[3]; Capelle, K ^[4]

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1. NEST-CNR-INFM and Scuola Normale Superiore, I-56126 Pisa (Italy)
2. International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), via Beirut 2-4, I-34014 Trieste (Italy)
3. Centro Internacional de Fisica da Materia Condensada, Universidade de Brasilia, Caixa Postal 04513, 70919-970 Brasilia (Brazil)
4. Departamento de Fisica e Informatica, Instituto de Fisica de Sao Carlos, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Caixa Postal 369, 13560-970 Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo (Brazil)

The Luther-Emery liquid is a state of matter that is predicted to occur in one-dimensional systems of interacting fermions and is characterized by a gapless charge spectrum and a gapped spin spectrum. In this Letter we discuss a realization of the Luther-Emery phase in a trapped cold-atom gas. We study by means of the density-matrix renormalization-group technique a two-component atomic Fermi gas with attractive interactions subject to parabolic trapping inside an optical lattice. We demonstrate how this system exhibits compound phases characterized by the coexistence of spin pairing and atomic-density waves. A smooth crossover occurs with increasing magnitude of the atom-atom attraction to a state in which tightly bound spin-singlet dimers occupy the center of the trap. The existence of atomic-density waves could be detected in the elastic contribution to the light-scattering diffraction pattern.

• OSTI ID: 20861609
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 98; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMS
DENSITY
DENSITY MATRIX
DIFFRACTION
DIMERS
FERMI GAS
FERMIONS
LIGHT SCATTERING
LIQUIDS
MATTER
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
RENORMALIZATION
SPECTRA
SPIN
TRAPPING
TRAPS