Unconventional symmetries of Fermi liquid and Cooper pairing properties with electric and magnetic dipolar fermions

TL;DR

This paper reviews theoretical advances in understanding unconventional symmetries, Fermi liquid behavior, and Cooper pairing in electric and magnetic dipolar fermionic systems, highlighting novel superfluid states and topological properties.

Contribution

It introduces new theoretical insights into the anisotropic Fermi liquid properties and unconventional pairing mechanisms in electric and magnetic dipolar fermions, including the $J$-triplet pairing state.

Findings

Electric dipolar interactions cause anisotropic Fermi liquid behavior.

Unconventional spin triplet Cooper pairing mechanisms are identified.

Magnetic dipolar systems exhibit a topologically non-trivial spin distribution.

Abstract

The rapid experimental progress of ultra-cold dipolar fermions opens up a whole new opportunity to investigate novel many-body physics of fermions. In this article, we review theoretical studies of the Fermi liquid theory and Cooper pairing instabilities of both electric and magnetic dipolar fermionic systems from the perspective of unconventional symmetries. When the electric dipole moments are aligned by the external electric field, their interactions exhibit the explicit $d_{r^2-3z^2}$ anisotropy. The Fermi liquid properties, including the single-particle spectra, thermodynamic susceptibilities, and collective excitations, are all affected by this anisotropy. The electric dipolar interaction provides a mechanism for the unconventional spin triplet Cooper pairing, which is different from the usual spin-fluctuation mechanism in solids and the superfluid $^3$He. Furthermore, the competition between pairing instabilities in the singlet and triplet channels gives rise to a novel time-reversal symmetry breaking superfluid state. Unlike electric dipole moments which are induced by electric fields and unquantized, magnetic dipole moments are intrinsic proportional to the hyperfine-spin operators with a Lande factor. Its effects even manifest in unpolarized systems exhibiting an isotropic but spin-orbit coupled nature. The resultant spin-orbit coupled Fermi liquid theory supports a collective sound mode exhibiting a topologically non-trivial spin distribution over the Fermi surface. It also leads to a novel $p$-wave spin triplet Cooper pairing state whose spin and orbital angular momentum are entangled to the total angular momentum $J=1$ dubbed the $J$-triplet pairing. This $J$-triplet pairing phase is different from both the spin-orbit coupled $^3$He-$B$ phase with $J=0$ and the spin-orbit decoupled $^3$He-$A$ phase.