Quantum liquid crystals in imbalanced Fermi gas: fluctuations and fractional vortices in Larkin-Ovchinnikov states

Abstract

We develop a low-energy model of a unidirectional Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) state. Because the underlying rotational and translational symmetries are broken spontaneously, this gapless superfluid is a 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 nematic superfluid. We expect this superfluid liquid-crystal phenomenology to be realizable in imbalanced resonant Fermi gases trapped isotropically.