Speaker
Joseph Carlson
Description
I describe the use of Quantum Monte Carlo Methods to study
low- and high-energy excitations of the Unitary Fermi Gas.
We have employed Auxiliary Field Quantum Monte Carlo methods
to study this regime of strong pairing in the inhomogeneous
gas. The scale invariance of the system places strong
constraints on the form of the density functional, unlike
nuclear density functionals it can be
described in only a very few constants. The derived functional
can then be used to predict the properties of small trapped
clusters, we find excellent agreement between microscopic
calculations of these clusters and results predicted by the
density functional. We have also studied the response of the
unitary Fermi Gas at very large momentum transfer.
Experimentally, the spin and density response are quite
different even at very high momentum. We describe approaches
to reproduce these responses and analogies to neutrino
scattering in nuclei.
