Detecting the elusive Larkin-Ovchinnikov modulated superfluid phases for imbalanced Fermi gases in optical lattices.
A system with unequal populations of up and down fermions may exhibit a Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) phase consisting of a periodic arrangement of domain walls where the order parameter changes sign and the excess polarization is localized. We find that the LO phase has a much larger range of stability in a lattice compared to the continuum; in a harmonic trap, the LO phase may involve 80% of the atoms in the trap, and can exist up to an entropy s approximately 0.5k(B) per fermion. We discuss detection of the LO phase (i) in real space by phase-contrast imaging of the periodic excess polarization; (ii) in k space by time-of-flight imaging of the single-particle and pair-momentum distributions; (iii) in energy space from the excess density of states within the gap arising from Andreev bound states in the domain walls.
Loh
Yen Lee
YL
Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, 191 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA.
Trivedi
Nandini
N