Superfluid Fermi gas in a 1D optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates the superfluid transition temperature of a two-component Fermi gas in a 1D optical lattice, exploring the dimensional crossover and conditions for observing the Mott transition.

Contribution

It provides a calculation of the superfluid transition temperature and analyzes the feasibility of observing the Mott transition in finite-sized systems.

Findings

Superfluid transition temperature calculated for 3D Fermi gas in 1D lattice.

Large critical tunneling rate for Mott transition exceeds three-body loss rate.

Observation of Mott transition possible in finite-size disc geometries.

Abstract

We calculate the superfluid transition temperature for a two-component 3D Fermi gas in a 1D tight optical lattice and discuss a dimensional crossover from the 3D to quasi-2D regime. For the geometry of finite size discs in the 1D lattice, we find that even for a large number of atoms per disc, the critical effective tunneling rate for a quantum transition to the Mott insulator state can be large compared to the loss rate caused by three-body recombination. This allows the observation of the Mott transition, in contrast to the case of Bose-condensed gases in the same geometry.