Unitary Fermi gas in a harmonic trap
- Department of Physics and Institute for Nuclear Theory, Box 351560, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 (United States)
We present an ab initio calculation of small numbers of trapped, strongly interacting fermions using the Green's function Monte Carlo method. The ground-state energy, density profile, and pairing gap are calculated for particle numbers N=2-22 using the parameter-free 'unitary' interaction. Trial wave functions are taken in the form of correlated pairs in a harmonic oscillator basis. We find that the lowest energies are obtained with a minimum explicit pair correlation beyond that needed to exploit the degeneracy of oscillator states. We find that the energies can be well fitted by the expression a{sub TF}E{sub TF}+{delta} mod(N,2) where E{sub TF} is the Thomas-Fermi energy of a noninteracting gas in the trap and {delta} is the pairing gap. There is no evidence of a shell correction energy in the systematics, but the density distributions show pronounced shell effects. We find the value {delta}=0.7{+-}0.2{omega} for the pairing gap. This is smaller than the value found for the uniform gas at a density corresponding to the central density of the trapped gas.
- OSTI ID:
- 21011361
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 76, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.76.021603; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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