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Results for “FERMI INTERACTIONS”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Spin-energy correlation in degenerate weakly interacting Fermi gases

Weakly interacting Fermi gases exhibit rich collective dynamics in spin-dependent potentials, arising from correlations between spin degrees of freedom and conserved single-atom energies, offering broad prospects for simulating many-body quantum systems by engineering energy-space “lattices,” with controlled energy landscapes and site-to-site interactions. Using quantum-degenerate clouds of 6 Li, confined in a spin-dependent harmonic potential, we measure complex, time-dependent spin-density profiles, varying on length scales much smaller than the cloud size. We demonstrate that a one-dimensional mean-field model, without additional simplifying approximations, quantitatively predicts the observed fine structure. We calculate the magnetic fields where the scattering lengths vanish for three different hyperfine state mixtures to provide constraints on the collisional (Feshbach) resonance parameters.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Interaction energy and itinerant ferromagnetism in a strongly interacting Fermi gas in the absence of molecule formation

In this study, we investigate the interaction energy and the possibility of itinerant ferromagnetism in a strongly interacting Fermi gas at zero temperature in the absence of molecule formation. The interaction energy is obtained by summing the perturbative contributions of Galitskii-Feynman type to all orders in the gas parameter. It can be expressed by a simple phase-space integral of an in-medium scattering phase shift. In both three and two dimensions (3D and 2D), the interaction energy shows a maximum before reaching the resonance from the Bose-Einstein condensate side, which provides a possible explanation of the experimental measurements of the interaction energy. This phenomenon can be theoretically explained by the qualitative change of the nature of the binary interaction in the medium. The appearance of an energy maximum has significant effects on the itinerant ferromagnetism. In 3D, the ferromagnetic transition is reentrant and itinerant ferromagnetism exists in a narrow window around the energy maximum. In 2D, the present theoretical approach suggests that itinerant ferromagnetism does not exist, which reflects the fact that the energy maximum becomes much lower than the energy of the fully polarized state.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

String-theory-based predictions for nonhydrodynamic collective modes in strongly interacting Fermi gases

Very different strongly interacting quantum systems such as Fermi gases, quark-gluon plasmas formed in high-energy ion collisions, and black holes studied theoretically in string theory are known to display quantitatively similar damping of hydrodynamic modes. It is unknown if such similarities extend beyond the hydrodynamic limit. Do nonhydrodynamic collective modes in Fermi gases with strong interactions also match those from string theory calculations? In order to answer this question, we view calculations based on string theory to make predictions for modes outside the hydrodynamic regime in trapped Fermi gases. These predictions are amenable to direct testing with current state-of-the-art cold atom experiments

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Mean-field analysis of dimensional crossover from two dimensions to three dimensions in a weakly interacting Fermi gas

We investigate theoretically the transition from two to three dimensions in a weakly interacting ultracold Fermi gas. This transition was recently observed by Dyke et al.[Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 105304 (2011)] in a cloud of fermionic {sup 6}Li atoms trapped in an oblate harmonic potential. We calculate the density distribution and cloud size of the Fermi cloud by numerically solving three-dimensional Hartree-Fock mean-field equations. Local density approximation is used to ease the calculations in the weakly confined radial direction. Our theoretical results are shown to be in good agreement with the experimental measurements.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Simulating strongly correlated electrons with a strongly interacting Fermi gas

The quantum many-body physics of strongly-correlated fermions is studied in a degenerate, strongly- interacting atomic Fermi gas, first realized by our group with DOE support in 2002. This system, which exhibits strong spin pairing, is now widely studied and provides an important paradigm for testing predictions based on state-of-the-art many-body theory in fields ranging from nuclear matter to high temperature superfluidity and superconductivity. As the system is strongly interacting, both the superfluid and the normal fluid are nontrivial and of great interest. A central part of our program on Fermi gases is the connection between the study of thermodynamics, supported by DOE and the study of hydrodynamic transport, supported by NSF. This connection is especially interesting in view of a recent conjecture from the string theory community on the concept of nearly perfect normal fluids, which exhibit a minimum ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in strongly-interacting, scale-invariant systems.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Ground-state properties of strongly interacting Fermi gases in two dimensions

Exact calculations are performed on the two-dimensional strongly interacting unpolarized uniform Fermi gas with a zero-range attractive interaction. Two auxiliary-field approaches are employed which accelerate the sampling of imaginary-time paths using BCS trial wave functions and a force bias technique. Their combination enables calculations on large enough lattices to reliably compute ground-state properties in the thermodynamic limit. An equation of state is obtained with a parametrization provided, which can serve as a benchmark and allow accurate comparisons with experiments. The pressure, contact parameter, and condensate fraction are determined systematically vs $k_Fa$ . The momentum distribution, pairing correlation, and the structure of the pair wave function are computed. The use of force bias to accelerate the Metropolis sampling of auxiliary fields in determinantal approaches is discussed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2012

Thermodynamics of an interacting Fermi system in the static fluctuation approximation

We suggest a new method of calculation of the equilibrium correlation functions of an arbitrary order for the interacting Fermi-gas model in the framework of the static fluctuation approximation method. This method based only on a single and controllable approximation allows obtaining the so-called far-distance equations. These equations connecting the quantum states of a Fermi particle with variables of the local field operator contain all necessary information related to the calculation of the desired correlation functions and basic thermodynamic parameters of the many-body system. The basic expressions for the mean energy and heat capacity for the electron gas at low temperatures in the high-density limit were obtained. All expressions are given in the units of r{sub s}, where r{sub s} determines the ratio of a mean distance between electrons to the Bohr radius a{sub 0}. In these expressions, we calculate terms of the respective order r{sub s} and r{sub s}{sup 2}. It is also shown that the static fluctuation approximation allows finding the terms related to higher orders of the decomposition with respect to the parameter r{sub s}.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2011

Validity of the scattering-length approximation in strongly interacting Fermi systems

We investigate the energy spectrum of systems of two, three, and four spin-(1/2) fermions with short range attractive interactions both exactly and within the scattering length approximation. The formation of molecular bound states and the ferromagnetic transition of the excited scattering state are examined systematically as a function of the two-body scattering length. Identification of the upper branch (scattering states) is discussed and a general approach valid for systems with many particles is given. We show that an adiabatic ferromagnetic transition occurs, but at a critical transition point k{sub F}a much higher than predicted from previous calculations, almost all of which use the scattering length approximation. In the four-particle system the discrepancy is a factor of 2. The exact critical interaction strength calculated in the four-particle system is consistent with that reported by experiment. To make comparisons with the adiabatic transition, we study the quench dynamics of the pairing instability using the eigenstate wave functions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2011

Universal contact and collective excitations of a strongly interacting Fermi gas

We study the relationship between Tan's contact parameter and the macroscopic dynamic properties of an ultracold trapped gas, such as the frequencies of the collective oscillations and the propagation of sound in one-dimensional (1D) configurations. We find that the value of the contact, extracted from the most recent low-temperature measurements of the equation of state near unitarity, reproduces with accuracy the experimental values of the collective frequencies of the radial breathing mode at the lowest temperatures. The available experiment results for the 1D sound velocities near unitarity are also investigated.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗