245 research outputs found
Boson-fermion mixtures inside an elongated cigar-shaped trap
We present mean-field calculations of the equilibrium state in a gaseous
mixture of bosonic and spin-polarized fermionic atoms with repulsive or
attractive interspecies interactions, confined inside a cigar-shaped trap under
conditions such that the radial thickness of the two atomic clouds is
approaching the magnitude of the s-wave scattering lengths. In this regime the
kinetic pressure of the fermionic component is dominant. Full demixing under
repulsive boson-fermion interactions can occur only when the number of fermions
in the trap is below a threshold, and collapse under attractive interactions is
suppressed within the range of validity of the mean-field model. Specific
numerical illustrations are given for values of system parameters obtaining in
7Li-6Li clouds.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
Boson-fermion demixing in a cloud of lithium atoms in a pancake trap
We evaluate the equilibrium state of a mixture of 7Li and 6Li atoms with
repulsive interactions, confined inside a pancake-shaped trap under conditions
such that the thickness of the bosonic and fermionic clouds is approaching the
values of the s-wave scattering lengths. In this regime the effective couplings
depend on the axial confinement and full demixing can become observable by
merely squeezing the trap, without enhancing the scattering lengths through
recourse to a Feshbach resonance.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Lett.
Phase separation in a boson-fermion mixture of Lithium atoms
We use a semiclassical three-fluid model to analyze the conditions for
spatial phase separation in a mixture of fermionic Li-6 and a (stable)
Bose-Einstein condensate of Li-7 atoms under cylindrical harmonic confinement,
both at zero and finite temperature. We show that with the parameters of the
Paris experiment [F. Schrek et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 080403 (2001)] an
increase of the boson-fermion scattering length by a factor five would be
sufficient to enter the phase-separated regime. We give examples of
configurations for the density profiles in phase separation and estimate that
the transition should persist at temperatures typical of current experiments.
For higher values of the boson-fermion coupling we also find a new phase
separation between the fermions and the bosonic thermal cloud at finite
temperature.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, new version of Fig. 4 and typos correcte
Collective dynamics of fermion clouds in cigar-shaped traps
The propagation of zero sound in a spin-polarized Fermi gas under harmonic
confinement is studied as a function of the mean-field interactions with a
second Fermi gas. A local-density treatment is compared with the numerical
solution of the Vlasov-Landau equations for the propagation of density
distortions in a trapped two-component Fermi gas at temperature T=0.2 Tf. The
response of the gas to the sudden creation of a sharp hole at its centre is
also studied numerically.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure
Structure and stability of quasi-two-dimensional boson-fermion mixtures with vortex-antivortex superposed states
We investigate the equilibrium properties of a quasi-two-dimensional
degenerate boson-fermion mixture (DBFM) with a bosonic vortex-antivortex
superposed state (VAVSS) using a quantum-hydrodynamic model. We show that,
depending on the choice of parameters, the DBFM with a VAVSS can exhibit rich
phase structures. For repulsive boson-fermion (BF) interaction, the
Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) may constitute a petal-shaped "core" inside the
honeycomb-like fermionic component, or a ring-shaped joint "shell" around the
onion-like fermionic cloud, or multiple segregated "islands" embedded in the
disc-shaped Fermi gas. For attractive BF interaction just below the threshold
for collapse, an almost complete mixing between the bosonic and fermionic
components is formed, where the fermionic component tends to mimic a bosonic
VAVSS. The influence of an anharmonic trap on the density distributions of the
DBFM with a bosonic VAVSS is discussed. In addition, a stability region for
different cases of DBFM (without vortex, with a bosonic vortex, and with a
bosonic VAVSS) with specific parameters is given.Comment: 8 pages,5 figure
Demixing in mesoscopic boson-fermion clouds inside cylindrical harmonic traps: quantum phase diagram and role of temperature
We use a semiclassical three-fluid thermodynamic model to evaluate the
phenomena of spatial demixing in mesoscopic clouds of fermionic and bosonic
atoms at high dilution under harmonic confinement, assuming repulsive
boson-boson and boson-fermion interactions and including account of a bosonic
thermal cloud at finite temperature T. The finite system size allows three
different regimes for the equilibrium density profiles at T=0: a fully mixed
state, a partially mixed state in which the overlap between the boson and
fermion clouds is decreasing, and a fully demixed state where the two clouds
have zero overlap. We propose simple analytical rules for the two cross-overs
between the three regimes as functions of the physical system parameters and
support these rules by extensive numerical calculations. A universal ``phase
diagram'' expressed in terms of simple scaling parameters is shown to be valid
for the transition to the regime of full demixing, inside which we identify
several exotic configurations for the two phase-separated clouds in addition to
simple ones consisting of a core of bosons enveloped by fermions and "vice
versa". With increasing temperature the main role of the growing thermal cloud
of bosons is to transform some exotic configurations into more symmetric ones,
until demixing is ultimately lost. For very high values of boson-fermion
repulsive coupling we also report demixing between the fermions and the
thermally excited bosons.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure
Collective excitations of a trapped boson-fermion mixture across demixing
We calculate the spectrum of low-lying collective excitations in a mesoscopic
cloud formed by a Bose-Einstein condensate and a spin-polarized Fermi gas as a
function of the boson-fermion repulsions. The cloud is under isotropic harmonic
confinement and its dynamics is treated in the collisional regime by using the
equations of generalized hydrodynamics with inclusion of surface effects. For
large numbers of bosons we find that, as the cloud moves towards spatial
separation (demixing) with increasing boson-fermion coupling, the frequencies
of a set of collective modes show a softening followed by a sharp upturn. This
behavior permits a clear identification of the quantum phase transition. We
propose a physical interpretation for the dynamical transition point in a
confined mixture, leading to a simple analytical expression for its location.Comment: revtex4, 9 pages, 8 postscript file
Collective excitations in trapped boson-fermion mixtures: from demixing to collapse
We calculate the spectrum of low-lying collective excitations in a gaseous
cloud formed by a Bose-Einstein condensate and a spin-polarized Fermi gas over
a range of the boson-fermion coupling strength extending from strongly
repulsive to strongly attractive. Increasing boson-fermion repulsions drive the
system towards spatial separation of its components (``demixing''), whereas
boson-fermion attractions drive it towards implosion (``collapse''). The
dynamics of the system is treated in the experimentally relevant collisionless
regime by means of a Random-Phase approximation and the behavior of a
mesoscopic cloud under isotropic harmonic confinement is contrasted with that
of a macroscopic mixture at given average particle densities. In the latter
case the locations of both the demixing and the collapse phase transitions are
sharply defined by the same stability condition, which is determined by the
softening of an eigenmode of either fermionic or bosonic origin. In contrast,
the transitions to either demixing or collapse in a mesoscopic cloud at fixed
confinement and particle numbers are spread out over a range of boson-fermion
coupling strength, and some initial decrease of the frequencies of a set of
collective modes is followed by hardening as evidenced by blue shifts of most
eigenmodes. The spectral hardening can serve as a signal of the impending
transition and is most evident when the number of bosons in the cloud is
relatively large. We propose physical interpretations for these dynamical
behaviors with the help of suitably defined partial compressibilities for the
gaseous cloud under confinement.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, revtex
Transmittivity of a Bose-Einstein condensate on a lattice: interference from period doubling and the effect of disorder
We evaluate the particle current flowing in steady state through a
Bose-Einstein condensate subject to a constant force in a quasi-onedimensional
lattice and to attractive interactions from fermionic atoms that are localized
in various configurations inside the lattice wells. The system is treated
within a Bose-Hubbard tight binding model by an out-of-equilibrium Green's
function approach. A new band gap opens up when the lattice period is doubled
by locating the fermions in alternate wells and yields an interference pattern
in the transmittivity on varying the intensity of the driving force. The
positions of the transmittivity minima are determined by matching the period of
Bloch oscillations and the time for tunnelling across the band gap. Massive
disorder in the distribution of the fermions will wash out the interference
pattern, but the same period doubling of the lattice can be experimentally
realized in a four-beam set-up. We report illustrative numerical results for a
mixture of 87Rb and 40K atoms in an optical lattice created by laser beams with
a wavelength of 763 nm.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Shell structure in the density profile of a rotating gas of spin-polarized fermions
We present analytical expressions and numerical illustrations for the
ground-state density distribution of an ideal gas of spin-polarized fermions
moving in two dimensions and driven to rotate in a harmonic well of circular or
elliptical shape. We show that with suitable choices of the strength of the
Lorentz force for charged fermions, or of the rotational frequency for neutral
fermions, the density of states can be tuned as a function of the angular
momentum so as to display a prominent shell structure in the spatial density
profile of the gas. We also show how this feature of the density profile is
revealed in the static structure factor determining the elastic light
scattering spectrum of the gas.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
- …