p-Wave superfluid and phase separation in atomic Bose-Fermi mixture

TL;DR

This paper explores the emergence of p-wave superfluidity in a Bose-Fermi mixture, highlighting the conditions for its realization, unique signatures, and potential experimental observations.

Contribution

It demonstrates the possibility of p-wave superfluidity driven by density fluctuations in Bose-Fermi mixtures and identifies observable signatures distinct from unpolarized superfluids.

Findings

p-wave superfluidity occurs in strong boson-fermion interaction regimes

anisotropic energy gap and quasi-particle energy are signatures of p-wave superfluidity

Cooper pairs become tightly bound molecules in strong coupling regimes

Abstract

We consider a system of repulsively interacting Bose-Fermi mixtures of spin polarized uniform atomic gases at zero temperature. We examine possible realization of p-wave superfluidity of fermions due to an effective attractive interaction via density fluctuations of Bose-Einstein condensate within mean-field approximation. We find the ground state of the system by direct energy comparison of p-wave superfluid and phase-separated states, and suggest an occurrence of the p-wave superfluid for a strong boson-fermion interaction regime. We study some signatures in the p-wave superfluid phase, such as anisotropic energy gap and quasi-particle energy in the axial state, that have not been observed in spin unpolarized superfluid of atomic fermions. We also show that a Cooper pair is a tightly bound state like a diatomic molecule in the strong boson-fermion coupling regime and suggest an observable indication of the p-wave superfluid in the real experiment.