Vortices in p-Wave Superfluids of Trapped Fermionic Atom Gases

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates p-wave superfluidity in trapped fermionic gases, revealing vortex structures, supercurrents, and effects of trap geometry and rotation, aiding in superfluid detection.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed Ginzburg-Landau analysis of p-wave superfluids in 3D traps, highlighting vortex formation and boundary effects not previously explored.

Findings

Spontaneous supercurrents exist at rest in the ground state.

Half-quantum vortices are stabilized under rotation.

Condensate shape deformations correlate with vortex formation.

Abstract

In order to help detecting superfluidity, we theoretically investigate p-wave pairing superfluids in neutral Fermion atom gases confined by a three dimensimentional (3D) harmonic potential. The Ginzburg-Landau framework, which is generic for p-wave superfluids, is used to describe the order parameter spatial structure, or texture characterized by the l-vector both at rest and under rotation. The l-vector configuration is strongly contrained by the boundary condition due to a trap. It is found that the ground state textures exhibit spontaneous supercurrent at rest both cigar and pancake shape traps. The current direction depends on the trapping shape. Under rotation a pair of half-quantum vortex with half-winding number enters a system and is stabilized for both trap geometries. We give detailed explanation for their 3D structure. The deformations of the condensate shape are seen with increasing the rotation speed, which is tightly connected with the underlying vortex formation where the condensates are depressed in the vortex core.