Vortex formation in a rotating two-component Fermi gas

Harmen Warringa

A two-component Fermi gas with attractive s-wave interactions forms a superfluid at very low temperatures. When such a superfluid is confined in a rotating trap, vortices can arise beyond certain critical rotation frequencies as has been observed experimentally. I will discuss the computation of the upper and lower critical rotation frequency as a function of scattering length, total number of trapped atoms, population imbalance, and temperature, in the weakly interacting regime. I will present several phase diagrams from which it can be seen under which circumstances vortices will appear. These results could be directly compared to a future experimental determination of the phase diagram of the rotating two-component Fermi gas.

References:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.2856
Phys. Rev. A 84, 023609 (2011) [ http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3644 ]