Stability of Sarma phases in density imbalanced electron-hole bilayer systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of Sarma phases in electron-hole bilayer systems with density imbalance, revealing conditions under which these phases are stable or unstable, and exploring the resulting complex phase diagram.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of Sarma phase stability considering intra-layer interactions and screening effects, highlighting the potential for FFLO phases.

Findings

Superfluid density remains positive with bare Coulomb interactions.

Screening can induce negative superfluid density, signaling instability.

Rich phase diagram emerges in the BCS-BEC crossover regime.

Abstract

We study excitonic condensation in an electron-hole bilayer system with unequal layer densities at zero temperature. Using mean-field theory we solve the BCS gap equations numerically and investigate the effects of intra-layer interactions. We analyze the stability of the Sarma phase with $\bk,-\bk$ pairing by calculating the superfluid mass density and also by checking the compressibility matrix. We find that with bare Coulomb interactions the superfluid density is always positive in the Sarma phase, due to a peculiar momentum structure of the gap function originating from the singular behavior of the Coulomb potential at zero momentum and the presence of a sharp Fermi surface. Introducing a simple model for screening, we find that the superfluid density becomes negative in some regions of the phase diagram, corresponding to an instability towards a Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) type superfluid phase. Thus, intra-layer interaction and screening together can lead to a rich phase diagram in the BCS-BEC crossover regime in electron-hole bilayer systems.