Strongly-resonant p-wave superfluids

We study theoretically a dilute gas of identical fermions interacting via a p-wave resonance. We show that, depending on the microscopic physics, there are two distinct regimes of p-wave resonant superfluids, which we term "weak" and "strong". Although expected naively to form a BCS-BEC superfluid, a strongly-resonant p-wave superfluid is in fact unstable towards the formation of a gas of fermionic triplets. We examine this instability and estimate the lifetime of the p-wave molecules due to the collisional relaxation into triplets. We discuss consequences for the experimental achievement of p-wave superfluids in both weakly- and strongly-resonant regimes

Observation of an orbital interaction-induced Feshbach resonance in 173-Yb

We report on the experimental observation of a novel inter-orbital Feshbach resonance in ultracold 173-Yb atoms, which opens the possibility of tuning the interactions between the 1S0 and 3P0 metastable state, both possessing vanishing total electronic angular momentum. The resonance is observed at experimentally accessible magnetic field strengths and occurs universally for all hyperfine state combinations. We characterize the resonance in the bulk via inter-orbital cross-thermalization as well as in a three-dimensional lattice using high-resolution clock-line spectroscopy.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Effect of fermion indistinguishability on optical absorption of doped two-dimensional semiconductors

Funding: AT and FMM acknowledge financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), projects No. AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (2DEnLight) and No. MAT2017-83772-R (QLMC-2D). FMM acknowledges financial support from the Proyecto Sinérgico CAM 2020 Y2020/TCS-6545 (NanoQuCo-CM). JL and MMP acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (CE170100039). JL and MMP are also supported through the Australian Research Council Future Fellowships FT160100244 and FT200100619, respectively. JK acknowledges financial support from EPSRC program “Hybrid Polaritonics” (EP/M025330/1).We study the optical absorption spectrum of a doped two-dimensional semiconductor in the spin-valley polarized limit. In this configuration, the carriers in the Fermi sea are indistinguishable from one of the two carriers forming the exciton. Most notably, this indistinguishability requires the three-body trion state to have p-wave symmetry. To explore the consequences of this, we evaluate the system's optical properties within a polaron description, which can interpolate from the low-density limit, where the relevant excitations are few-body bound states, to higher-density many-body states. In the parameter regime where the trion is bound, we demonstrate that the spectrum is characterized by an attractive quasiparticle branch, a repulsive branch, and a many-body continuum, and we evaluate the doping dependence of the corresponding energies and spectral weights. In particular, at low doping we find that the oscillator strength of the attractive branch scales with the square of the Fermi energy as a result of the trion's p-wave symmetry. Upon increasing density, we find that the orbital character of the states associated with these branches interchanges. We compare our results with previous investigations of the scenario where the Fermi sea involves carriers distinguishable from those in the exciton, for which the trion ground state is s wave.PreprintPostprintPeer reviewe

Proximity DC squids in the long junction limit

We report the design and measurement of Superconducting/normal/superconducting (SNS) proximity DC squids in the long junction limit, i.e. superconducting loops interrupted by two normal metal wires roughly a micrometer long. Thanks to the clean interface between the metals, at low temperature a large supercurrent flows through the device. The dc squid-like geometry leads to an almost complete periodic modulation of the critical current through the device by a magnetic flux, with a flux periodicity of a flux quantum h/2e through the SNS loop. In addition, we examine the entire field dependence, notably the low and high field dependence of the maximum switching current. In contrast with the well-known Fraunhoffer-type oscillations typical of short wide junctions, we find a monotonous gaussian extinction of the critical current at high field. As shown in [15], this monotonous dependence is typical of long and narrow diffusive junctions. We also find in some cases a puzzling reentrance at low field. In contrast, the temperature dependence of the critical current is well described by the proximity effect theory, as found by Dubos {\it et al.} [16] on SNS wires in the long junction limit. The switching current distributions and hysteretic IV curves also suggest interesting dynamics of long SNS junctions with an important role played by the diffusion time across the junction.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figure

Quasiparticle Lifetime of the Repulsive Fermi Polaron

We investigate the metastable repulsive branch of a mobile impurity coupled to a degenerate Fermi gas via short-range interactions. We show that the quasiparticle lifetime of this repulsive Fermi polaron can be experimentally probed by driving Rabi oscillations between weakly and strongly interacting impurity states. Using a time-dependent variational approach, we find that we can accurately model the impurity Rabi oscillations that were recently measured for repulsive Fermi polarons in both two and three dimensions. Crucially, our theoretical description does not include relaxation processes to the lower-lying attractive branch. Thus, the theory-experiment agreement demonstrates that the quasiparticle lifetime is dominated by many-body dephasing within the upper repulsive branch rather than by relaxation from the upper branch itself. Our findings shed light on recent experimental observations of persistent repulsive correlations, and have important consequences for the nature and stability of the strongly repulsive Fermi gas

Large atom number dual-species magneto-optical trap for fermionic 6Li and 40K atoms

We present the design, implementation and characterization of a dual-species magneto-optical trap (MOT) for fermionic 6Li and 40K atoms with large atom numbers. The MOT simultaneously contains 5.2x10^9 6Li-atoms and 8.0x10^9 40K-atoms, which are continuously loaded by a Zeeman slower for 6Li and a 2D-MOT for 40K. The atom sources induce capture rates of 1.2x10^9 6Li-atoms/s and 1.4x10^9 40K-atoms/s. Trap losses due to light-induced interspecies collisions of ~65% were observed and could be minimized to ~10% by using low magnetic field gradients and low light powers in the repumping light of both atomic species. The described system represents the starting point for the production of a large-atom number quantum degenerate Fermi-Fermi mixture

Liberating Efimov physics from three dimensions

When two particles attract via a resonant short-range interaction, three particles always form an infinite tower of bound states characterized by a discrete scaling symmetry. It has been considered that this Efimov effect exists only in three dimensions. Here we review how the Efimov physics can be liberated from three dimensions by considering two-body and three-body interactions in mixed dimensions and four-body interaction in one dimension. In such new systems, intriguing phenomena appear, such as confinement-induced Efimov effect, Bose-Fermi crossover in Efimov spectrum, and formation of interlayer Efimov trimers. Some of them are observable in ultracold atom experiments and we believe that this study significantly broadens our horizons of universal Efimov physics.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, contribution to a special issue of Few-Body Systems devoted to Efimov Physic