Superfluidity of identical fermions in an optical lattice: atoms and polar molecules

In this work, we discuss the emergence of $p$-wave superfluids of identical fermions in 2D lattices. The optical lattice potential manifests itself in an interplay between an increase in the density of states on the Fermi surface and the modification of the fermion-fermion interaction (scattering) amplitude. The density of states is enhanced due to an increase of the effective mass of atoms. In deep lattices, for short-range interacting atoms, the scattering amplitude is strongly reduced compared to free space due to a small overlap of wavefunctions of fermions sitting in the neighboring lattice sites, which suppresses the $p$-wave superfluidity. However, we show that for a moderate lattice depth there is still a possibility to create atomic $p$-wave superfluids with sizable transition temperatures. The situation is drastically different for fermionic polar molecules. Being dressed with a microwave field, they acquire a dipole-dipole attractive tail in the interaction potential. Then, due to a long-range character of the dipole-dipole interaction, the effect of the suppression of the scattering amplitude in 2D lattices is absent. This leads to the emergence of a stable topological $p_x+ip_y$ superfluid of identical microwave-dressed polar molecules.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures; prepared for proceedings of the IV International Conference on Quantum Technologies (Moscow, July 12-16, 2017); the present paper summarizes the results of our studies arXiv:1601.03026 and arXiv:1701.0852

Collapse and Bose-Einstein condensation in a trapped Bose-gas with negative scattering length

We find that the key features of the evolution and collapse of a trapped Bose condensate with negative scattering length are predetermined by the particle flux from the above-condensate cloud to the condensate and by 3-body recombination of Bose-condensed atoms. The collapse, starting once the number of Bose-condensed atoms reaches the critical value, ceases and turns to expansion when the density of the collapsing cloud becomes so high that the recombination losses dominate over attractive interparticle interaction. As a result, we obtain a sequence of collapses, each of them followed by dynamic oscillations of the condensate. In every collapse the 3-body recombination burns only a part of the condensate, and the number of Bose-condensed atoms always remains finite. However, it can comparatively slowly decrease after the collapse, due to the transfer of the condensate particles to the above-condensate cloud in the course of damping of the condensate oscillations.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Influence of radiative interatomic collisions on an atom laser

We discuss the role of light absorption by pairs of atoms (radiative collisions) in the context of a model for an atom laser. The model is applied to the case of VSCPT cooling of metastable triplet helium. We show that, because of radiative collisions, for positive detuning of the driving light fields from an atomic resonance the operating conditions for the atom laser can only be marginally met. It is shown that the system only behaves as an atom laser if a very efficient sub-Doppler precooling mechanism is operative. In the case of negative frequency detuning the requirements on this sub-Doppler mechanism are less restricting, provided one avoids molecular resonances.Comment: 19 pages, 2 Postscript figure

Dynamics of dark solitons in elongated Bose-Einstein condensates

We find two types of moving dark soliton textures in elongated Bose-Einstein condensates: non-stationary kinks and proper dark solitons. The former have a curved notch region and rapidly decay by emitting phonons and/or proper dark solitons. The proper moving solitons are characterized by a flat notch region and we obtain the diagram of their dynamical stability. At finite temperatures the dynamically stable solitons decay due to the thermodynamic instability. We develop a theory of their dissipative dynamics and explain experimental data.Comment: ~ 5 pages, 1 figur

Stable Topological Superfluid Phase of Ultracold Polar Fermionic Molecules

We show that single-component fermionic polar molecules confined to a 2D geometry and dressed by a microwave field, may acquire an attractive $1/r^3$ dipole-dipole interaction leading to superfluid p-wave pairing at sufficiently low temperatures even in the BCS regime. The emerging state is the topological $p_x+ip_y$ phase promising for topologically protected quantum information processing. The main decay channel is via collisional transitions to dressed states with lower energies and is rather slow, setting a lifetime of the order of seconds at 2D densities $\sim 10^8$ cm$^{-2}$

Feshbach resonances in Cesium at Ultra-low Static Magnetic Fields

We have observed Feshbach resonances for 133Cs atoms in two different hyperfine states at ultra-low static magnetic fields by using an atomic fountain clock. The extreme sensitivity of our setup allows for high signal-to-noise-ratio observations at densities of only 2*10^7 cm^{-3}. We have reproduced these resonances using coupled-channels calculations which are in excellent agreement with our measurements. We justify that these are s-wave resonances involving weakly-bound states of the triplet molecular Hamiltonian, identify the resonant closed channels, and explain the observed multi-peak structure. We also describe a model which precisely accounts for the collisional processes in the fountain and which explains the asymmetric shape of the observed Feshbach resonances in the regime where the kinetic energy dominates over the coupling strength.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl