Emergence of Metallic Quantum Solid Phase in a Rydberg-Dressed Fermi Gases

Abstract

We examine possible low-temperature phases of a repulsively Rydberg-dressed Fermi gas in a three-dimensional free space. It is shown that the collective density excitations develop a roton minimum, which is softened at a wavevector smaller than the Fermi wavevector when the particle density is above a critical value. The mean field calculation shows that unlike the insulating charge density waves states often observed in conventional condensed matters, a self-assembled metallic density wave state emerges at low temperatures. In particular, the density wave state supports a Fermi surface and a body-center-cubic crystal order at the same time with the estimated critical temperature being about one-tenth of the non-interacting Fermi energy. Our results suggest the emergency of a fermionic quantum solid that should be observable in current experimental setup.