Abstract
We report on experimental studies on the collective behavior of a strongly interacting Fermi gas with tunable interactions and variable temperature. A scissors mode excitation in an elliptical trap is used to characterize the dynamics of the quantum gas in terms of hydrodynamic or near-collisionless behavior. We obtain a crossover phase diagram for collisional properties, showing a large region where a nonsuperfluid strongly interacting gas shows hydrodynamic behavior. In a narrow interaction regime on the BCS side of the crossover, we find a novel temperature-dependent damping peak, suggesting a relation to the superfluid phase transition.
- Received 24 July 2007
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.150403
©2007 American Physical Society