Dynamics of strongly interacting Fermi gases with time-dependent interactions: Consequence of conformal symmetry

Abstract

In this Letter, we investigate the effects of a time-dependent, short-ranged interaction on the long-time expansion dynamics of Fermi gases. We show that the effects of the interaction on the dynamics is dictated by how it changes under a conformal transformation, and derive an explicit criterion for the relevancy of time-dependent interactions in both the strongly and non-interacting nearly scale invariant quantum gases. In addition, we show that it is possible to engineer interactions that give rise to non-exponential thermalization dynamics in trapped Fermi gases. To supplement the symmetry analysis, we also perform hydrodynamic simulations to show that the moment of inertia of the trapped gas indeed follows a universal time-dependence determined jointly by the conformal symmetry and time-dependent scattering length $a(t)$. Our results should also be relevant to the dynamics of other systems that are nearly scale invariant and that are governed by a non-relativistic conformal symmetry.