Profiles of near-resonant population-imbalanced trapped Fermi gases

TL;DR

This paper studies the structure of polarized Fermi gases in traps across the BCS-BEC crossover, revealing how polarization and interactions influence phase separation and providing experimental insights into polarized superfluid phases.

Contribution

It offers a theoretical analysis of density profiles and phase separation in polarized Fermi gases using mean field theory, connecting predictions with experimental observations.

Findings

Density profiles show phase separation into shells.

Shell structure depends on polarization and interaction strength.

Comparison suggests conditions for polarized superfluid phases.

Abstract

We investigate the density profiles of a partially polarized trapped Fermi gas in the BCS-BEC crossover region using mean field theory within the local density approximation. Within this approximation the gas is phase separated into concentric shells. We describe how the structure of these shells depends upon the polarization and the interaction strength. A Comparison with experiments yields insight into the possibility of a polarized superfluid phase.