Mott Criticality and Pseudogap in Bose-Fermi Mixtures

Ehud Altman, Eugene Demler, and Achim Rosch
Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 235304 – Published 4 December 2012
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Abstract

We study the Mott transition of a mixed Bose-Fermi system of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice, where the number of (spinless) fermions and bosons adds up to one atom per lattice, nF+nB=1. For weak interactions, a Fermi surface coexists with a Bose-Einstein condensate while for strong interaction the system is incompressible but still characterized by a Fermi surface of composite fermions. At the critical point, the spectral function of the fermions A(k,ω) exhibits a pseudogapped behavior, rising as |ω| at the Fermi momentum, while in the Mott phase it is fully gapped. Taking into account the interaction between the critical modes leads at very low temperatures either to p-wave pairing or the transition is driven weakly first order. The same mechanism should also be important in antiferromagnetic metals with a small Fermi surface.

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  • Received 22 May 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.235304

© 2012 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Ehud Altman1,2, Eugene Demler3, and Achim Rosch4

  • 1Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
  • 2Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 4Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, 50937 Cologne, Germany

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Vol. 109, Iss. 23 — 7 December 2012

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