The Nature and Properties of a Repulsive Fermi Gas in the "Upper Branch"

TL;DR

This paper extends the NSR method to analyze the upper branch of a repulsive Fermi gas, revealing stability conditions, energy behavior, and density features without molecule formation, with implications for experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized NSR approach to study the upper branch of repulsive Fermi gases, highlighting stability and energy characteristics near resonance.

Findings

System remains stable away from resonance at low temperatures.

Energy density peaks at a positive scattering length before resonance.

Compressibility decreases at maximum energy, affecting density profiles.

Abstract

We generalize the Nozi\'eres-Schmitt-Rink (NSR) method to study the repulsive Fermi gas in the absence of molecule formation, i.e., in the so-called "upper branch". We find that the system remains stable except close to resonance at sufficiently low temperatures. With increasing scattering length, the energy density of the system attains a maximum at a positive scattering length before resonance. This is shown to arise from Pauli blocking which causes the bound states of fermion pairs of different momenta to disappear at different scattering lengths. At the point of maximum energy, the compressibility of the system is substantially reduced, leading to a sizable uniform density core in a trapped gas. The change in spin susceptibility with increasing scattering length is moderate and does not indicate any magnetic instability. These features should also manifest in Fermi gases with unequal masses and/or spin populations.