Triplet pair amplitude in a trapped $s$-wave superfluid Fermi gas with broken spin rotation symmetry. II. Three dimensional continuum case

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a trapped s-wave superfluid Fermi gas with broken spin rotation symmetry can exhibit induced p-wave pairing amplitudes, suggesting a pathway to realize p-wave superfluidity through interaction switching.

Contribution

The study extends previous two-dimensional models to three dimensions, showing that parity-mixing effects and induced p-wave pair amplitudes occur in realistic trapped Fermi gases beyond local density approximation.

Findings

Induced p-wave pair amplitude exists in spin-imbalanced s-wave superfluids.

Switching to p-wave interaction can immediately produce p-wave superfluid order.

Parity-mixing effects require going beyond local density approximation.

Abstract

We extend our recent work [Y. Endo et. al., Phys. Rev. 92, 023610 (2015)] for a parity-mixing effect in a model two-dimensional lattice fermions to a realistic three-dimensional ultracold Fermi gas. Including effects of broken local spatial inversion symmetry by a trap potential within the framework of the real-space Bogoliubov-de Gennes theory at $T=0$, we point out that an odd-parity $p$-wave Cooper-pair amplitude is expected to have already been realized in previous experiments on an (even-parity) $s$-wave superfluid Fermi gas with spin imbalance. This indicates that, when one suddenly changes the $s$-wave pairing interaction to an appropriate $p$-wave one by using a Feshbach technique in this case, a non-vanishing $p$-wave superfluid order parameter is immediately obtained, which is given by the product of the $p$-wave interaction and the $p$-wave pair amplitude that has already been induced in the spin-imbalanced $s$-wave superfluid Fermi gas. Thus, by definition, the system is in the $p$-wave superfluid state, at least just after this manipulation. Since the achievement of a $p$-wave superfluid state is one of the most exciting challenges in cold Fermi gas physics, our results may provide an alternative approach to this unconventional pairing state. In addition, since the parity-mixing effect cannot be explained as far as one deals with a trap potential in the local density approximation (LDA), it is considered as a crucial example which requires us to go beyond LDA.