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Using photoemission spectroscopy to probe a strongly interacting Fermi gas

Nature volume 454, pages 744–747 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Ultracold atomic gases provide model systems in which to study many-body quantum physics. Recent experiments using Fermi gases have demonstrated a phase transition to a superfluid state with strong interparticle interactions1,2,3,4,5,6. This system provides a realization of the ‘BCS–BEC crossover’7 connecting the physics of Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconductivity with that of Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs). Although many aspects of this system have been investigated, it has not yet been possible to measure the single-particle excitation spectrum (a fundamental property directly predicted by many-body theories). Here we use photoemission spectroscopy to directly probe the elementary excitations and energy dispersion in a strongly interacting Fermi gas of 40K atoms. In the experiments, a radio-frequency photon ejects an atom from the strongly interacting system by means of a spin-flip transition to a weakly interacting state. We measure the occupied density of single-particle states at the cusp of the BCS–BEC crossover and on the BEC side of the crossover, and compare these results to that for a nearly ideal Fermi gas. We show that, near the critical temperature, the single-particle spectral function is dramatically altered in a way that is consistent with a large pairing gap. Our results probe the many-body physics in a way that could be compared to data for the high-transition-temperature superconductors. As in photoemission spectroscopy for electronic materials, our measurement technique for ultracold atomic gases directly probes low-energy excitations and thus can reveal excitation gaps and/or pseudogaps. Furthermore, this technique can provide an analogue of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy for probing anisotropic systems, such as atoms in optical lattice potentials.

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Figure 1: Photoemission spectroscopy for ultracold atom gases.
Figure 2: Extracting the three-dimensional momentum distribution.
Figure 3: Single-particle excitation spectra obtained using photoemission spectroscopy of ultracold atoms.
Figure 4: Energy distribution curves for a strongly interacting Fermi gas.
Figure 5: The occupied density of single-particle states.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the US NSF. We thank E. Cornell, D. Dessau and the JILA BEC group for discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Quantum Physics Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology and Department of Physics, JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA,

    J. T. Stewart, J. P. Gaebler & D. S. Jin

Authors
  1. J. T. Stewart
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  2. J. P. Gaebler
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  3. D. S. Jin
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Correspondence to D. S. Jin.

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Stewart, J., Gaebler, J. & Jin, D. Using photoemission spectroscopy to probe a strongly interacting Fermi gas. Nature 454, 744–747 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07172

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