Description
Motivated by polarized Feshbach-resonant atomic gases, I
will discuss the nature of low-energy fluctuations in the
putative Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) state. Because the
underlying rotational and translational symmetries are
broken spontaneously, this gapless superfluid is a quantum
smectic liquid crystal, that exhibits fluctuations that are
qualitatively stronger than in a conventional superfluid,
thus requiring a fully nonlinear description of its
Goldstone modes. Consequently, at nonzero temperature the LO
superfluid is an algebraic phase even in 3d. It exhibits
half-integer vortex-dislocation defects, whose unbinding
leads to transitions to a superfluid nematic and other
phases. In 2d at nonzero temperature, the LO state is always
unstable to a charge-4 (paired Cooper-pairs) nematic
superfluid. I expect this superfluid liquid-crystal
phenomenology to be realizable in imbalanced resonant Fermi
gases trapped isotropically.
Primary author
Prof.
Leo Radzihovsky
(University of Colorado)
