Onset of a Pseudogap Regime in Ultracold Fermi Gases

We show, using an ab initio approach based on Quantum Monte Carlo technique, that the pseudogap regime emerges in ultracold Fermi gases close to the unitary point. We locate the onset of this regime at a value of the interaction strength corresponding to (k_{F}a)^{-1}\approx -0.05 (a - scattering length). We determine the evolution of the gap as a function of temperature and interaction strength in the Fermi gas around the unitary limit and show that our results exhibit a remarkable agreement with the recent wave-vector resolved radio frequency spectroscopy data. Our results indicate that a finite temperature structure of the Fermi gas around unitarity is more complicated and involves the presence of the phase with preformed Cooper pairs, which however do not contribute to the long range order.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures + 5 pages of supplementary online materia

Exotic nuclear phases in the inner crust of neutron stars in the light of Skyrme-Hartree-Fock theory

The bottom part of the neutron star crust is investigated using the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock approach with the Coulomb interaction treated beyond the Wigner-Seitz approximation. A variety of nuclear phases is found to coexist in this region. Their stability and relative energies are governed by the Coulomb, surface and shell energies. We have also found that a substantial contribution is coming from the spin-orbit interaction.Comment: 4 pages, 1 eps figure, Talk at the 17th Nuclear Physics Divisional Conference of the EPS: Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics, Debrecen, Hungary, Sept. 30 - Oct. 4, 200

Temperature Dependence of the Optical Response of Small Sodium Clusters

We present an analysis of the temperature dependence of the optical response of small sodium clusters in a temperature range bracketing the melting phase transition. When the temperature increases, the mean excitation energy undergoes a red shift and the plasmon is significantly broadened, in agreement with recent experimental data. We show that the single--particle levels acquire a prominent width and the HOMO--LUMO gap as well as the width of the occupied band are reduced due to large thermal cluster size and shape fluctuations. This results in a sharp increase of the static polarizability with temperature.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, 3 uuencoded postscript figure

Collective oscillations of a trapped Fermi gas near the unitary limit

We calculate the oscillation frequencies of trapped Fermi condensate with particular emphasis on the equation of state of the interacting Fermi system. We confirm Stringari's finding that the frequencies are independent of the interaction in the unitary limit, and we extend the theory away from that limit, where the interaction does affect the frequencies of the compressional modes only.Comment: 4 pages, corrected a couple of trivial mistakes in table II and the related text and added reference

Resonantly Interacting Fermions In a Box

We use two fundamental theoretical frameworks to study the finite-size (shell) properties of the unitary gas in a periodic box: 1) an ab initio Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculation for boxes containing 4 to 130 particles provides a precise and complete characterization of the finite-size behavior, and 2) a new Density Functional Theory (DFT) fully encapsulates these effects. The DFT predicts vanishing shell structure for systems comprising more than 50 particles, and allows us to extrapolate the QMC results to the thermodynamic limit, providing the tightest bound to date on the ground-state energy of the unitary gas: \xi_S <= 0.383(1). We also apply the new functional to few-particle harmonically trapped systems, comparing with previous calculations.Comment: Updated to correspond with published version: 4+ pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, Palatino and Euler font