Direct imaging of spatially modulated superfluid phases in atomic fermion systems

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Feb 18;94(6):060404. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.060404. Epub 2005 Feb 18.

Abstract

It is proposed that the spatially modulated superfluid phase, or the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state could be observed in resonant fermion atomic condensates which are realized recently. We examine optimal experimental setups to achieve it by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation for both idealized one-dimensional and realistic three-dimensional cases. The spontaneous modulation of this superfluid is shown to be directly imaged as the density profiles either by optical absorption or by Stern-Gerlach experiments.