Repulsive polarons in alkaline-earth(-like) atoms across an orbital Feshbach resonance

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of repulsive polarons in alkaline-earth-like atoms near an orbital Feshbach resonance, revealing their energy, decay, and potential for itinerant ferromagnetism, with implications for experimental observation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of repulsive polarons across an orbital Feshbach resonance, highlighting their non-monotonic lifetime and potential for ferromagnetism, which is a novel insight in this context.

Findings

Repulsive polaron lifetime is non-monotonic with Zeeman-field detuning.

Maximum polaron lifetime occurs on the BEC-side of the resonance.

Possible realization of itinerant ferromagnetism near the resonance.

Abstract

We characterize properties of the so-called repulsive polaron across the recently discovered orbital Feshbach resonance in alkaline-earth(-like) atoms. Being a metastable quasiparticle excitation at the positive energy, the repulsive polaron is induced by the interaction between an impurity atom and a Fermi sea. By analyzing in detail the energy, the polaron residue, the effective mass, and the decay rate of the repulsive polaron, we reveal interesting features that are intimately related to the two-channel nature of the orbital Feshbach resonance. In particular, we find that the life time of the repulsive polaron is non-monotonic in the Zeeman-field detuning bewteen the two channels, and has a maximum on the BEC-side of the resonance. Further, by considering the stability of a mixture of the impurity and the majority atoms against phase separation, we show that the itin- erant ferromagnetism may exist near the orbital Feshbach resonance at appropriate densities. Our results can be readily probed experimentally, and have interesting implications for the observation of itinerant ferromagnetism near an orbital Feshbach resonance.