Uniform spin susceptibility and spin-gap phenomenon in the BCS-BEC-crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas

Hiroyuki Tajima, Takashi Kashimura, Ryo Hanai, Ryota Watanabe, and Yoji Ohashi

Phys. Rev. A 89, 033617 – Published 12 March 2014

Abstract

We investigate the uniform spin susceptibility $χ_{s}$ in the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer)-BEC (Bose-Einstein condensation) crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas. Including pairing fluctuations within the framework of an extended $T$ -matrix approximation, we show that $χ_{s}$ exhibits nonmonotonic temperature dependence in the normal state. In particular, $χ_{s}$ is suppressed near the superfluid phase transition temperature $T_{c}$ due to strong pairing fluctuations. To characterize this anomalous behavior, we introduce the spin-gap temperature $T_{s}$ as the temperature at which $χ_{s}$ takes a maximum value. Determining $T_{s}$ in the whole BCS-BEC crossover region, we identify the spin-gap regime in the phase diagram of a Fermi gas in terms of the temperature and the strength of a pairing interaction. We also clarify how the spin-gap phenomenon is related to the pseudogap phenomenon appearing in the single-particle density of states. Our results indicate that an ultracold Fermi gas in the BCS-BEC crossover region is a very useful system to examine the pseudogap phenomenon and the spin-gap phenomenon in a unified manner.