Textures and Vortices in d-Wave Fermi Condensates in Atomic Gases

TL;DR

This paper theoretically explores the properties of d-wave superfluid Fermi gases in atomic traps, analyzing stable vortex textures and proposing experimental methods to create non-Abelian fractional vortices.

Contribution

It develops a symmetry-constrained Ginzburg-Landau functional for d-wave pairing in atomic gases and investigates stable vortex configurations, including non-Abelian 1/3-vortices.

Findings

Stable vortex textures identified in all three phases.

Conditions for non-Abelian 1/3-vortex stability analyzed.

Proposal for experimental creation of 1/3-vortices in atomic gases.

Abstract

Fundamental properties of superfluids with d-wave pairing symmetry are investigated theoretically. We consider neutral atomic Fermi gases in a harmonic trap, the Cooper pairing being produced by a Feshbach resonance via a d-wave interaction channel. A Ginzburg-Landau (GL) functional is constructed which is symmetry constrained for five component order parameters (OPs). We find stable OP textures and vortices for all the three phases which are known to be the energy minimum of the GL functional; the ferromagnetic, polar and cyclic phases both at rest and under rotation. In particular, we touch upon the stability conditions for a non-Abelian fractional 1/3-vortex in the cyclic phase under rotation. It is proposed how to create the intriguing 1/3-vortex experimentally in atomic gases via optical means.