Direct Imaging of Spatially Modulated Superfluid Phases in Atomic Fermion Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes methods to observe the FFLO superfluid phase in atomic fermion systems by solving Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations and suggests direct imaging techniques for experimental detection.

Contribution

It introduces optimal experimental setups and demonstrates how to directly image spatially modulated superfluid phases in atomic fermion condensates.

Findings

Spontaneous density modulation can be directly imaged.

Optimal conditions for observing FFLO states are identified.

Both 1D and 3D cases are analyzed.

Abstract

It is proposed that the spatially modulated superfluid phase, or the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state could be observed in resonant Fermion atomic condensates which are realized recently. We examine optimal experimental setups to achieve it by solving Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation both for idealized one-dimensional and realistic three-dimensional cases. The spontaneous modulation of this superfluid is shown to be directly imaged as the density profiles either by optical absorption or by Stern-Gerlach experiments.