Fermions with tunable interactions... In the lithium lab we produce ultracold Fermi gases of 6Li to explore out-of-equilibrium dynamics and transport phenomena in strongly correlated fermionic matter. Atoms are confined into light-imprinted potential structures, simulating the motion of electrons in solid state devices. Our main goal is the study of two-dimensional strongly correlated phases, such as superfluidity across the BCS-BEC crossover and its robustness to disorder.

A novel heterogeneous phase in strongly repulsive Fermi gases

Despite its seeming simplicity, a Fermi gas of ultracold atoms with strong repulsive interactions exhibits a complex behavior, resulting from the competing action of two distinct instabilities — ferromagnetism and pairing. The breakdown of the repulsive Fermi liquid state, arising from such concurrent mechanisms, has been recently observed in real time through pump-probe spectroscopic techniques [A. Amico et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 253602 (2018)], leading also to the discovery of an emergent metastable microemulsion state of anticorrelated fermions and pairs. Here, we investigate the properties of such correlated many-body regime by preparing a strongly repulsive Fermi gas, and studying the evolution of kinetic and release energies, of the spectral response and coherence of the unpaired fermionic population, and of its spin-density noise correlations. All our observations consistently point to a low-temperature heterogeneous phase, where paired and unpaired fermions macroscopically coexist while exhibiting microscale inhomogeneity. Our findings open the exploration of quantum emulsions and possibly of inhomogeneous superfluid regimes.

F. Scazza et al.
Exploring emergent heterogeneous phases in strongly repulsive Fermi gases
Phys. Rev. A 101, 013603 (2020)

Li people

Nicola Grani
PhD Student
Diego Hernández Rajkov
PhD Student
Giulia Del Pace
Research Fellow
Massimo Inguscio
Scientific Staff
Giacomo Roati
Scientific Staff
Former members:
Klejdja Xhani
Woo Jin Kwon
Francesco Scazza
Andrea Amico
Alessia Burchianti
Chiara Fort
Riccardo Panza
Jorge Seman
Pedro Tavares
Giacomo Valtolina
Matteo Zaccanti

Li contacts

For further information, request of material, job opportunities, please contact:

Giacomo Roati
(roati@lens.unifi.it)

Li funding

ERC CoG QUFERM2D
EU Quantum Flagship
Qombs (2018-2021)
PRIN 2017 CEnTraL
Progetto Ente Cassa QuSiM2D
H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 VorDIST
H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 SCOUTFermi2D