Superfluidity of a spin-imbalanced Fermi gas in a three-dimensional optical lattice

Abstract

We study fermion pairing in a population-imbalanced mixture of $^{6}$Li atomic gas loaded in a three-dimensional lattice at very low temperatures. Using the number equation for each population, the gap equation and the equation for the Helmholtz free energy, we determine the gap, chemical potentials and pair-momentum as functions of polarization. These parameters define the stability regions for: a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov phase; a phase separation region where BCS and normal phases coexist; a Sarma phase when the pair-momentum vanishes, and the transition to the normal phase when the gap disappears. The collective-mode energies are then calculated using a Bethe-Salpeter approach in the generalized random phase approximation assuming that the system is well described by the single-band Hubbard model. A novel result is that this fermionic gas has a superfluid phase revealed by rotonlike minima in the asymmetric collective-mode energy spectrum.