Effective Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations for Cigar-Shaped and Disk-Shaped Fermi Superfluids at Unitarity

Abstract

In the case of tight transverse confinement (cigar-shaped trap) the three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear Schrödinger equation, describing superfluid Fermi atoms at unitarity (infinite scattering length $|a|\to \infty$), is reduced to an effective one-dimensional form by averaging over the transverse coordinates. The resultant effective equation is a 1D nonpolynomial Schrodinger equation, which produces results in good agreement with the original 3D one. In the limit of small and large fermion number $N$ the nonlinearity is of simple power-law type. A similar reduction of the 3D theory to a two-dimensional form is also performed for a tight axial confinement (disk-shaped trap). The resultant effective 2D nonpolynomial equation also produces results in agreement with the original 3D equation and has simple power-law nonlinearity for small and large $N$. For both cigar- and disk-shaped superfluids our nonpolynomial Schrödinger equations are quite attractive for phenomenological application.