Published papers

We theoretically investigate strong-coupling properties of a Bose-Fermi mixture. In the mass- A nd population-balanced case, two of the authors have shown that a strong heteropairing interaction in this mixture brings about coupling phenomena between Fermi atomic excitations and Bose atomic and composite molecular excitations, that appear as an anomalous multiple peak structure in the single-particle spectral weight (SW) [Kharga, Inotani, Hanai, and Ohashi, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 86, 084301 (2017)JUPSAU0031-901510.7566/JPSJ.86.084301]. In this paper, we show that, although these many-body phenomena are sensitive to mass and population imbalances between the Bose and Fermi components, SW still exhibits the multiple peak structure in moderately mass-imbalanced Rb87-K40 and Na23-K40 mixtures. We also point out that the photoemission spectrum is a useful quantity to observe this spectral anomaly. Since a real trapped Bose-Fermi mixture is usually accompanied by mass and (local) population imbalances, our results would contribute to the study of a strongly interacting Bose-Fermi mixture, under realistic imbalanced conditions.

We study a non-equilibrium unitary Fermi gas, being coupled with two baths with different values of chemical potential. Extending a T-matrix approximation developed in equilibrium Fermi gases to the non-equilibrium steady state by using the Keldysh Green’s function technique, we examine the superfluid phase transition out of equilibrium. We also clarify non-equilibrium effects on the pseudogap phenomenon by strong pairing fluctuations.

© 2018 American Physical Society. We investigate theoretically strong-coupling and finite-temperature effects on the p-wave contacts, as well as the asymptotic behavior of the momentum distribution in the large-momentum region in a one-component Fermi gas with a tunable p-wave interaction. Including p-wave pairing fluctuations within a strong-coupling theory, we calculate the p-wave contacts above the superfluid transition temperature Tc from the adiabatic energy relations. We show that, while the p-wave contact related to the scattering volume monotonically increases with increasing interaction strength, the one related to the effective range depends nonmonotonically on interaction strength and its sign changes in the intermediate-coupling regime. The nonmonotonic interaction dependence of these quantities is shown to originate from the competition between the increase of the cutoff momentum and the decrease of the coupling constant of the p-wave interaction with increasing effective range. We also analyze the asymptotic form of the momentum distribution in the large-momentum region. In contrast to the conventional s-wave case, we show that the asymptotic behavior cannot be completely described by only the p-wave contacts, and the extra terms, which are not related to the thermodynamic properties, appear. Furthermore, in the high-temperature region, we find that the extra terms dominate the subleading term of the large-momentum distribution. We also directly compare our results with the recent experimental measurement by including the effects of a harmonic trap potential within the local density approximation. We show that, while our model qualitatively explains the dependence on the interaction strength of the p-wave contacts, there are some quantitative disagreements between our theory and recent experiment; for example, the peak position of the p-wave contact related to the effective range. Since the p-wave contacts connect the microscopic properties to the thermodynamic properties of the system, our results would be helpful for further understanding many-body properties of this anisotropic interacting Fermi gas in the normal phase.

We theoretically investigate strong-coupling properties of an ultracold Fermi gas in the BCS-BEC crossover regime in the nonequilibrium steady state, being coupled with two fermion baths. By developing a nonequilibrium strong-coupling theory based on the combined T-matrix approximation with the Keldysh Green's function technique, we show that the chemical potential bias applied by the two baths gives rise to the anomalous enhancement of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) pairing fluctuations (although the system has no spin imbalance), resulting in the re-entrant behavior of the nonequilibrium superfluid phase transition in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer unitary regime. These pairing fluctuations are also found to anomalously enhance the pseudogap phenomenon. Since various nonequilibrium phenomena have recently been measured in ultracold Fermi gases, our nonequilibrium strong-coupling theory would be useful to catch up with this experimental development in this research field.

We theoretically investigate the spin-dipole oscillation of a strongly interacting Fermi gas confined by a harmonic trapping potential. By using a diagrammatic strong-coupling theory combined with a local density approximation and a sum rule approach, we study the temperature dependence of the spin-dipole frequency near unitarity. The connection of the spin-dipole frequency with the spin susceptibility and the pairing correlations is exploited. While the spin-dipole frequency exactly coincides with the trap frequency in a noninteracting Fermi gas, it is shown to be strongly enhanced in the superfluid state, because of the suppression of the spin degree of freedom due to the spin-singlet Cooper-pair formation. In strongly interacting Fermi gases, such enhancement occurs even above the superfluid phase transition temperature, due to the strong pairing correlations.

We theoretically investigate the thermodynamic stability of an ultracold Bose–Fermi mixture with a tunable inter-species interaction associated with a hetero-nuclear Feshbach resonance. To include hetero-pairing fluctuations, we employ an improved T-matrix approximation (iTMA), where all Bose Green’s functions involved in the self-energy are modified so as to satisfy the required gapless Bose excitations at the BEC phase transition. Using iTMA, we evaluate the compressibility matrix in the normal state, to examine the stability of the system against an effective Bose–Bose attraction, mediated by Fermi atoms. We clarify how the mechanical collapse of a Bose–Fermi mixture can be avoided by a direct Bose–Bose repulsive interaction. We also show that this thermodynamic instability cannot be captured by the ordinary non-self-consistent TMA, where the bare Bose Green’s function is used in the self-energy.Since the thermodynamic stability is crucial for the experimental realization of a resonant Bose–Fermi mixture, our results would contribute to the research for many-body properties of this system.

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. We review the BCS (Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer)–BEC (Bose–Einstein condensation) crossover phenomenon discussed in an ultracold Fermi atomic gas and a neutron superfluid in the low-density crust regime of a neutron star. A purpose of this paper is to show that these two very different atomic and nuclear systems can be closely related to each other from the viewpoint of this quantum many-body phenomenon. We explain how the BCS–BEC crossover is realized in the former atomic system by using the novel pairing mechanism called Feshbach resonance. We present a simple explanation for this crossover phenomenon to grasp the essence, as well as detailed microscopic theories that can cover the entire BCS–BEC crossover region. In the latter, we point out that the ordinary BCS theory already has the ability to describe the BCS–BEC crossover at T=0. At finite temperatures T>0, however, we need to go beyond this mean-field theory. Besides general aspects of the BCS–BEC crossover phenomenon, we also pick up special topics peculiar to each atomic gas and neutron fluid. The first one is the pseudogap phenomenon in the normal state of a Fermi atomic gas. The second one is the problem of non-zero effective range in an s-wave neutron superfluid.

We theoretically investigate quantum conductance across a point contact between two strongly-interacting ultracold Fermi gases. We evaluate the tunneling current, taking into account pairing fluctuations in the Fermi gases within the framework of a combined strong-coupling T-matrix approximation with the Schwinger-Keldysh non-equilibrium formalism. We show that quasi-particle conductance is gradually suppressed, as one passes through the BCS–BEC crossover region from the weak-coupling side. On the other hand, with increasing the strength of a pairing interaction, the fluctuation-pair conductance is found to remarkably increase in the crossover region, which is followed by the suppression in the strong-coupling regime.

We theoretically investigate the superfluid properties of a two-band gas of Yb173 Fermi atoms with an orbital Feshbach resonance (OFR). To describe the BCS-BEC crossover region, we include superfluid fluctuations caused by interband and intraband pairing interactions associated with OFR by extending the strong-coupling theory developed by Nozières and Schmitt-Rink to the two-band case below the superfluid phase transition temperature; however, the effects of an experimentally inaccessible deep bound state are removed to model a real Yb173 Fermi gas near OFR. We show that the condensate fraction in the upper closed channel gradually becomes smaller than that in the lower open channel as one moves from the strong- to the weak-coupling regime, because the OFR-pairing mechanism tunes the interaction strengths by adjusting the energy difference between the two bands. However, even when the closed-channel band is much higher in energy than the open-channel band in the weak-coupling regime, the magnitude of the superfluid order parameter in the closed channel is found to be still comparable to that in the open channel. As the reason for this, we point out a pair-tunneling effect by the OFR-induced interband interaction. In addition to these superfluid quantities, we also examine collective modes, such as the Goldstone mode, the Schmid (Higgs) mode, and Leggett mode, to clarify how they appear in the spectral weights of pair-correlation functions in each band. Since the realization of a multiband superfluid Fermi gas is a crucial issue in cold Fermi gas physics, our results would contribute to the basic understanding of this type of Fermi superfluid in the BCS-BEC crossover region.

We theoretically investigate the thermodynamic stability of a normal-state Bose-Fermi mixture, with a tunable Bose-Fermi pairing interaction -UBF<0 associated with a heteronuclear Feshbach resonance, as well as a weak repulsive Bose-Bose interaction UBB≥0. Including strong heteropairing fluctuations associated with the former interaction within the self-consistent T-matrix approximation, as well as the latter within the mean-field level, we calculate the compressibility matrix, to assess the stability of this system against density fluctuations. In the weak- and the intermediate-coupling regimes with respect to -UBF, we show that an effective attractive interaction between bosons mediated by density fluctuations in the Fermi component makes the system unstable below a certain temperature Tclp (leading to density collapse). When UBB=0, Tclp is always higher than the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) temperature Tc. When UBB>0, the density collapse is suppressed, and the BEC transition becomes possible. It is also suppressed by the formation of tightly bound Bose-Fermi molecules when the heteropairing interaction -UBF is strong; however, since the system may be viewed as a molecular Fermi gas in this case, the BEC transition does not also occur. Since quantum gases involving Bose atoms are known to be sensitive to interparticle correlations, our results would be useful for the study of many-body properties of a Bose-Fermi mixture in a stable manner, without facing the unwanted density collapse.

We theoretically investigate a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) type superfluid phase transition in a driven-dissipative two-component Fermi gas. The system is assumed to be in the nonequilibrium steady state, which is tuned by adjusting the chemical potential difference between two reservoirs that are coupled with the system. Including pairing fluctuations by extending the strong-coupling theory developed in the thermal-equilibrium state by Nozières and Schmitt-Rink to this nonequilibrium case, we show that a nonequilibrium FFLO (NFFLO) phase transition can be realized without spin imbalance, under the conditions that (1) the two reservoirs imprint a two-edge structure on the momentum distribution of Fermi atoms and (2) the system is loaded on a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice. While the two edges work like two Fermi surfaces with different sizes, the role of the optical lattice is to prevent the NFFLO long-range order from destruction by NFFLO pairing fluctuations. We also draw the nonequilibrium mean-field phase diagram in terms of the chemical potential difference between the two reservoirs, a fictitious magnetic field to tune the spin imbalance of the system, and the environmental temperature of the reservoirs to clarify the relation between the NFFLO state and the ordinary thermal-equilibrium FFLO state discussed in spin-imbalanced Fermi gases.