Pairing in ultracold Fermi gases in the lowest Landau level

TL;DR

This paper explores the phase diagram of ultracold spin-1/2 fermions in the lowest Landau level, revealing phase separation, fractional quantum Hall states, and potential non-Abelian paired states through tuning interactions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of pairing phenomena and topological states in rotating ultracold Fermi gases with tunable s- and p-wave interactions.

Findings

Phase separation with droplet formation at attractive interactions

Identification of fractional quantum Hall states at various filling factors

Evidence for non-Abelian paired states and critical states through interaction tuning

Abstract

We study a rapidly rotating gas of unpolarized spin-1/2 ultracold fermions in the two-dimensional regime when all atoms reside in the lowest Landau level. Due to the presence of the spin degree of freedom both s-wave and p-wave interactions are allowed at ultralow temperatures. We investigate the phase diagram of this system as a function of the filling factor in the lowest Landau level and in terms of the ratio between s- and p-wave interaction strengths. We show that the presence of attractive interactions induces a wide regime of phase separation with formation of maximally compact droplets that are either fully polarized or composed of spin-singlets. In the regime with no phase separation, we give evidence for fractional quantum Hall states. Most notably, we find two distinct singlet states at the filling nu =2/3 for different interactions. One of these states is accounted for by the composite fermion theory while the other one is a paired state for which we identify two competing descriptions with different topological structure. This paired state may be an Abelian liquid of composite spin-singlet Bose molecules with Laughlin correlations. Alternatively, it may be a known non-Abelian paired state, indicated by good overlaps with the corresponding trial wavefunction. By fine tuning of the scattering lengths it is possible to create the non-Abelian critical Haldane-Rezayi state for nu =1/2 and the permanent state of Moore and Read for nu =1. For purely repulsive interactions, we also find evidence for a gapped Halperin state at nu=2/5.