Stability of resonantly interacting heavy-light Fermi mixtures

TL;DR

This study uses diffusion Monte Carlo simulations to analyze the stability and superfluidity of heavy-light Fermi mixtures across different mass ratios, identifying a critical threshold for stability.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed quantum Monte Carlo analysis of the stability of resonantly interacting heavy-light Fermi mixtures as a function of mass ratio.

Findings

Mixture is stable and superfluid for mass ratios below 13 +/- 1.

Instability and cluster formation occur for larger mass ratios.

Cluster states involve one light and multiple heavy particles within interatomic potential range.

Abstract

We investigate a two-component mixture of resonantly interacting Fermi gases as a function of the ratio \kappa of the heavy to the light mass of the two species. The diffusion Monte Carlo method is used to calculate the ground-state energy and the pair correlation function starting from two different guiding wave functions, which describe respectively the superfluid and the normal state of the gas. Results show that the mixture is stable and superfluid for mass ratios smaller than the critical value \kappa_c = 13 +/- 1. For larger values of \kappa simulations utilizing the wave function of the normal state are unstable towards cluster formation. The relevant cluster states driving the instability appear to be formed by one light particle and two or more heavy particles within distances on the order of the range of the interatomic potential. The small overlap between the wave function of the trimer bound state and the guiding wave function used to describe the superfluid state produces the unphysical stability of the superfluid gas above \kappa_c.