Dynamic generation of superflow in a fermionic ring through phase imprinting

TL;DR

This paper investigates how phase imprinting induces persistent superfluid currents in a fermionic ring, revealing the roles of interactions and initial states in superflow formation through detailed dynamical analysis.

Contribution

It provides a microscopic, dynamical study of superflow generation in fermionic systems via phase imprinting, highlighting the effects of interactions and initial pairing states.

Findings

Quantized superfluid current develops through azimuthal phase slips.

The density distribution's susceptibility to phase imprinting decreases near the BEC side.

Interaction strength influences the magnitude of the induced superflow.

Abstract

We study the dynamic generation of persistent current by phase imprinting fermionic atoms in a ring geometry. Mediated by the pairing interaction, the Fermi condensate dynamically acquires a quantized current by developing azimuthal phase slips, as well as density and pairing-order-parameter depletions. Resorting to the Bogolioubov-de Gennes formalism, we investigate the time evolution of the transferred total angular momentum and the quantized superfluid current throughout the phase-imprinting process. This enables a detailed analysis of the impact of interaction, as well as different initial pairing states, on the superflow formation. In particular, we show that, as the condensate is tuned toward the Bose-Einstein-condensate side of the Feshbach resonance, the azimuthal density distribution becomes less susceptible to the phase imprinting potential, leading to smaller quantized current under the same imprinting parameters. Our results offer microscopic insights into the dynamic development of superflow in the phase-imprinting process, and are helpful for the ongoing experimental effort.