Universal clusters in quasi-two-dimensional ultracold Fermi mixtures

TL;DR

This paper investigates universal trimer and tetramer clusters in quasi-two-dimensional ultracold Fermi mixtures, revealing how confinement and interaction parameters influence their properties and stability across dimensional crossover.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of universal clusters in q2D, including the effects of confinement, angular momentum selection, and effective range, along with an effective 2D model for experimental relevance.

Findings

Confinement lifts degeneracy and selects specific angular momentum ground states.

Critical mass ratios for cluster formation are unaffected by finite effective range in weak coupling.

An effective 2D model accurately reproduces cluster properties and guides experimental detection.

Abstract

We study universal clusters in quasi-two dimensions (q2D) that consist of a light (L) atom interacting with two or three heavy (H) identical fermions, forming the trimer or tetramer bound state. The axial confinement in q2D is shown to lift the three-fold degeneracy of 3D trimer (tetramer) in $p$-wave channel and uniquely select the ground state with magnetic angular momentum $|m|=1$ ($m=0$). By varying the interaction or confinement strength, we explore the dimensional crossover of these clusters from 3D to 2D, characterized by a gradual change of critical H-L mass ratio for their emergence and momentum-space distribution. Importantly, we find that a finite effective range will {\it not} alter their critical mass ratios in the weak coupling regime. There, we establish an effective 2D model to quantitatively reproduce the properties of q2D clusters, and further identify the optimal interaction strengths for their detections in experiments. Our results suggest a promising prospect for observing universal clusters and associated high-order correlation effects in realistic q2D ultracold Fermi mixtures.