Probing two-fluid hydrodynamics in a trapped Fermi superfluid at unitarity

ORAL

Abstract

We develop a variational approach to calculate the density response function at finite temperatures of the lowest-lying two-fluid dipole and breathing modes in a trapped two-component Fermi superfluid close to a Feshbach resonance. The out-of-phase oscillations, which are the analogue in trapped gases of second sound in uniform superfluids, have so far not been observed in cold-atom experiments. At unitarity, we show that these modes are observable at finite temperatures via two-photon Bragg scattering, whose spectrum is related to the imaginary part of density response function. This provides direct evidence for superfluidity and a promising way to test microscopic results for thermodynamics at unitarity. (arXiv:0709.0698, 0711.0561).

Authors

  • Edward Taylor

    University of Toronto

  • Allan Griffin

    University of Toronto

  • Hui Hu

    University of Queensland

  • Xia-Ji Liu

    University of Queensland