Superfluid phases of the three-species fermion gas

TL;DR

This paper explores the complex zero-temperature phase diagram of a three-fermion species gas, revealing various superfluid and inhomogeneous phases, and discusses experimental realization with lithium-6 atoms.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical conjecture of the phase diagram in the unitary regime for three-species fermionic gases, incorporating effects like Thomas-Efimov physics and proposing experimental detection methods.

Findings

Rich phase diagram with superfluid, gapless superfluid, and inhomogeneous phases

Role of Thomas-Efimov effect in phase behavior

Guidelines for experimental identification of phases

Abstract

We discuss the zero temperature phase diagram of a dilute gas with three fermionic species. We make use of solvable limits to conjecture the behavior of the system in the "unitary" regions. The physics of the Thomas-Efimov effect plays a role in these considerations. We find a rich phase diagram with superfluid, gapless superfluid and inhomogeneous phases with different symmetry breaking patterns. We then discuss one particular possible experimental implementation in a system of ^6Li atoms and the possible phases arising in this system as an external magnetic field is varied across three overlaping Feshbach resonances. We also suggest how to experimentally distinguish the different phases.