The unitary Fermi gas at finite temperature: momentum distribution and contact

TL;DR

This paper discusses the properties of the Unitary Fermi Gas at finite temperature, focusing on the momentum distribution and the universal contact parameter, using Monte Carlo simulations to advance understanding of this strongly interacting quantum system.

Contribution

The paper presents new Monte Carlo results for the contact at finite temperature and explores open questions in the field using large-scale computational methods.

Findings

Monte Carlo results for the contact at finite temperature

Identification of open questions in UFG research

Application of lattice QCD methods to Fermi gases

Abstract

The Unitary Fermi Gas (UFG) is one of the most strongly interacting systems known to date, as it saturates the unitarity bound on the quantum mechanical scattering cross section. The UFG corresponds to a two-component Fermi gas in the limit of short interaction range and large scattering length, and is currently realized in ultracold-atom experiments via Feshbach resonances. While easy to define, the UFG poses a challenging quantum many-body problem, as it lacks any characteristic scale other than the density. As a consequence, accurate quantitative predictions of the thermodynamic properties of the UFG require Monte Carlo calculations. However, significant progress has also been made with purely analytical methods. Notably, in 2005 Tan derived a set of exact thermodynamic relations in which a universal quantity known as the "contact" C plays a crucial role. Recently, C has also been found to determine the prefactor of the high- frequency power-law decay of correlators as well as the right-hand-sides of shear- and bulk viscosity sum rules. The contact is therefore a central piece of information on the UFG in equilibrium as well as away from equilibrium. In this talk we describe some of the known aspects of Fermi gases at and around unitarity, show our latest Monte Carlo results for the contact at finite temperature, and summarize the open questions in the field, some of which we are starting to answer using large-scale Monte Carlo calculations by adapting methods from Lattice QCD.