Effects of a Fluctuating Interface between a Superfluid and a Polarized Fermi Gas
Abstract
Description
Motivated by recent experiments in trapped Fermi gas with spin population imbalance, we discuss the effects of the quantum and thermal fluctuations of the interface between a fully paired superfluid core and a fully polarized Fermi gas. We demonstrate that even if there is no true partially polarized thermodynamic phase in bulk, the interface fluctuation can give rise to a partially polarized transition regime in trap. Our theory yields a definite prediction for the functional forms of the spatial profile of spin polarization and pairing gap, and we show that the spin-resolved density profiles measured by both the MIT and Rice groups obey this function form. We also show that sufficient large fluctuation will lead to a visibly unequal density even at the center of the cloud. We hope this picture can shed lights on the controversial discrepancies in recent experiments.
4 pages, 3 figures
4 pages, 3 figures