Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory for one-dimensional attractive Fermi gases

TL;DR

This paper develops a universal Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory for 1D attractive Fermi gases, describing the FFLO state across coupling regimes, revealing spin-charge coupling and charge separation, and proposing experimental verification with ultracold atoms.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive TLL framework for the FFLO state in 1D attractive Fermi gases, including derivations for weak and strong coupling regimes and experimental proposals.

Findings

Two-component Luttinger liquid with spin-charge coupling and charge-charge separation.

Phase transition in the sine-Gordon term driven by magnetic field.

Predictions for dynamical correlation functions of the FFLO state.

Abstract

The one-dimensional (1D) Yang-Gaudin model-an integrable $\delta$-function interacting Fermi gas, serves as a paradigm in quantum many-body physics, encompassing phenomena from spin-charge separation to the Luther-Emery liquid. However, a consistent description of the Luther-Emery liquid and the bosonization of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO)-like pairing states in the 1D attractive Fermi gas remains elusive. In this work, we develop a universal Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) theory to describe the FFLO state across both weak and strong coupling regimes. We rigorously derive the low-energy effective Hamiltonian using bosonization, revealing the emergence of a two-component Luttinger liquid: one exhibiting spin-charge coupling in the weakly attractive regime, and another featuring charge-charge separation in the strongly attractive regime. For the weakly attractive regime, we further derive the renormalization-group equations for the sine-Gordon term in the spin sector and show that this term undergoes a relevant-irrelevant phase transition driven by the magnetic field. For the strongly attractive regime, we analyze the dynamical correlation functions of the FFLO pairing state based on the derived effective Hamiltonian. Finally, we propose an experimental scheme using ultracold atoms to verify the Luther-Emery liquid behavior and the subtle phenomena of spin-charge coupling and charge-charge separation.