Calculating the classical virial expansion using automated algebra.

Using schematic model potentials, we calculate exactly the virial coefficients of a classical gas up to sixth order and use them to calculate the virial expansion of basic thermodynamic quantities such as pressure, density, and compressibility. At sufficiently strong couplings, as expected, the virial expansion fails to converge. However, at least for the interactions and parameter ranges we explored, we find that Padé-Borel resummation methods are very effective in improving the convergence of the expansion.

Ab Initio Nuclear Thermodynamics.

We propose a new Monte Carlo method called the pinhole trace algorithm for ab initio calculations of the thermodynamics of nuclear systems. For typical simulations of interest, the computational speedup relative to conventional grand-canonical ensemble calculations can be as large as a factor of one thousand. Using a leading-order effective interaction that reproduces the properties of many atomic nuclei and neutron matter to a few percent accuracy, we determine the location of the critical point and the liquid-vapor coexistence line for symmetric nuclear matter with equal numbers of protons and neutrons. We also present the first ab initio study of the density and temperature dependence of nuclear clustering.

Emergence of a Pseudogap in the BCS-BEC Crossover.

Strongly correlated Fermi systems with pairing interactions become superfluid below a critical temperature T_{c}. The extent to which such pairing correlations alter the behavior of the liquid at temperatures T>T_{c} is a subtle issue that remains an area of debate, in particular regarding the appearance of the so-called pseudogap in the BCS-BEC crossover of unpolarized spin-1/2 nonrelativistic matter. To shed light on this, we extract several quantities of crucial importance at and around the unitary limit, namely, the odd-even staggering of the total energy, the spin susceptibility, the pairing correlation function, the condensate fraction, and the critical temperature T_{c}, using a nonperturbative, constrained-ensemble quantum Monte Carlo algorithm.

Finite-Temperature Equation of State of Polarized Fermions at Unitarity.

We study in a nonperturbative fashion the thermodynamics of a unitary Fermi gas over a wide range of temperatures and spin polarizations. To this end, we use the complex Langevin method, a first principles approach for strongly coupled systems. Specifically, we show results for the density equation of state, the magnetization, and the magnetic susceptibility. At zero polarization, our results agree well with state-of-the-art results for the density equation of state and with experimental data. At finite polarization and low fugacity, our results are in excellent agreement with the third-order virial expansion. In the fully quantum mechanical regime close to the balanced limit, the critical temperature for superfluidity appears to depend only weakly on the spin polarization.

Entanglement, noise, and the cumulant expansion.

We put forward a simpler and improved variation of a recently proposed method to overcome the signal-to-noise problem found in Monte Carlo calculations of the entanglement entropy of interacting fermions. The present method takes advantage of the approximate log-normal distributions that characterize the signal-to-noise properties of other approaches. In addition, we show that a simple rewriting of the formalism allows circumvention of the inversion of the restricted one-body density matrix in the calculation of the nth Rényi entanglement entropy for n>2. We test our technique by implementing it in combination with the hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm and calculating the n=2,3,4,⋯,10 Rényi entropies of the one-dimensional attractive Hubbard model. We use that data to extrapolate to the von Neumann (n=1) and n→∞ cases.

Convexity of the entanglement entropy of SU(2N)-symmetric fermions with attractive interactions.

The positivity of the probability measure of attractively interacting systems of 2N-component fermions enables the derivation of an exact convexity property for the ground-state energy of such systems. Using analogous arguments, applied to path-integral expressions for the entanglement entropy derived recently, we prove nonperturbative analytic relations for the Rényi entropies of those systems. These relations are valid for all subsystem sizes, particle numbers, and dimensions, and in arbitrary external trapping potentials.

Zero-temperature equation of state of mass-imbalanced resonant Fermi gases.

We calculate the zero-temperature equation of state of mass-imbalanced resonant Fermi gases in an ab initio fashion, by implementing the recent proposal of imaginary-valued mass difference to bypass the sign problem in lattice Monte Carlo calculations. The fully nonperturbative results thus obtained are analytically continued to real mass-imbalance to yield the physical equation of state, providing predictions for upcoming experiments with mass-imbalanced atomic Fermi gases. In addition, we present an exact relation for the rate of change of the equation of state at small mass imbalances, showing that it is fully determined by the energy of the mass-balanced system.

Imaginary polarization as a way to surmount the sign problem in ab initio calculations of spin-imbalanced Fermi gases.

From ultracold atoms to quantum chromodynamics, reliable ab initio studies of strongly interacting fermions require numerical methods, typically in some form of quantum Monte Carlo calculation. Unfortunately, (non)relativistic systems at finite density (spin polarization) generally have a sign problem, such that those ab initio calculations are impractical. It is well-known, however, that in the relativistic case imaginary chemical potentials solve this problem, assuming the data can be analytically continued to the real axis. Is this feasible for nonrelativistic systems? Are the interesting features of the phase diagram accessible in this manner? By introducing complex chemical potentials, for real total particle number and imaginary polarization, the sign problem is avoided in the nonrelativistic case. To give a first answer to the above questions, we perform a mean-field study of the finite-temperature phase diagram of spin-1/2 fermions with imaginary polarization.

Cooper pairing above the critical temperature in a unitary Fermi gas.

We present an ab initio determination of the spin response of the unitary Fermi gas. Based on finite temperature quantum Monte Carlo calculations and the Kubo linear-response formalism, we determine the temperature dependence of the spin susceptibility and the spin conductivity. We show that both quantities exhibit suppression above the critical temperature of the superfluid-to-normal phase transition due to Cooper pairing. The spin diffusion transport coefficient does not display a minimum in the vicinity of the critical temperature and drops to very low values D(s)≈0.8h/m in the superfluid phase. All these spin observables show a smooth and monotonic behavior with temperature when crossing the critical temperature T(c), until the Fermi liquid regime is attained at the temperature T(*), above which the pseudogap regime disappears.

Precise determination of the structure factor and contact in a unitary Fermi gas.

We present a high-precision determination of the universal contact parameter in a strongly interacting Fermi gas. In a trapped gas at unitarity, we find the contact to be 3.06±0.08 at a temperature of 0.08 of the Fermi temperature in a harmonic trap. The contact governs the high-momentum (short-range) properties of these systems, and this low-temperature measurement provides a new benchmark for the zero-temperature homogeneous contact. The experimental measurement utilizes Bragg spectroscopy to obtain the dynamic and static structure factors of ultracold Fermi gases at high momentum in the unitarity and molecular Bose-Einstein condensate regimes. We have also performed quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the static properties, extending from the weakly coupled BCS regime to the strongly coupled Bose-Einstein condensate case, that show agreement with experiment at the level of a few percent.

Shear viscosity of a unitary Fermi gas.

We present an ab initio determination of the shear viscosity η of the unitary Fermi gas, based on finite temperature quantum Monte Carlo calculations and the Kubo linear-response formalism. We determine the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity-to-entropy density ratio η/s. The minimum of η/s appears to be located above the critical temperature for the superfluid-to-normal phase transition with the most probable value being (η/s)min≈0.2ℏ/k(B), which is close the Kovtun-Son-Starinets universal value ℏ/(4πk(B)).

Momentum distribution and contact of the unitary Fermi gas.

We calculate the momentum distribution n(k) of the unitary Fermi gas by using quantum Monte Carlo calculations at finite temperature T/ϵ(F) as well as in the ground state. At large momenta k/k(F), we find that n(k) falls off as C/k4, in agreement with the Tan relations. From the asymptotics of n(k), we determine the contact C as a function of T/ϵ(F) and present a comparison with theory. At low T/ϵ(F), we find that C increases with temperature, and we tentatively identify a maximum around T/ϵ(F) ≃ 0.4. Our calculations are performed on lattices of spatial extent up to N(x) = 14 with a particle number per unit volume of ≃ 0.03-0.07.

Is graphene in vacuum an insulator?

We present evidence, from lattice Monte Carlo simulations of the phase diagram of graphene as a function of the Coulomb coupling between quasiparticles, that graphene in vacuum is likely to be an insulator. We find a semimetal-insulator transition at alpha_{g};{crit}=1.11+/-0.06, where alpha_{g} approximately 2.16 in vacuum, and alpha_{g} approximately 0.79 on a SiO2 substrate. Our analysis uses the logarithmic derivative of the order parameter, supplemented by an equation of state. The insulating phase disappears above a critical number of four-component fermion flavors 4

Finite-temperature pairing gap of a unitary fermi gas by quantum monte carlo calculations.

We calculate the one-body temperature Green's (Matsubara) function of the unitary Fermi gas via quantum Monte Carlo, and extract the spectral weight function A(p,omega) using the methods of maximum entropy and singular value decomposition. From A(p,omega) we determine the quasiparticle spectrum, which can be accurately parametrized by three functions of temperature: an effective mass m{*}, a mean-field potential U, and a gap Delta. Below the critical temperature T{c}=0.15 epsilon{F} the results for m{*}, U, and Delta can be accurately reproduced using an independent quasiparticle model. We find evidence of a pseudogap in the fermionic excitation spectrum for temperatures up to T{*} approximately 0.20 epsilon{F}> T{c}.

Thermodynamics of a trapped unitary Fermi gas.

We present the first model-independent comparison of recent measurements of the entropy and of the critical temperature of a unitary Fermi gas, performed by Luo et al., with the most complete results currently available from finite temperature Monte Carlo calculations. The measurement of the critical temperature in a cold fermionic atomic cloud is consistent with a value T(c) = 0.23(2)epsilon(F) in the bulk, as predicted by the present authors in their Monte Carlo calculations.

Spin 1/2 fermions in the unitary regime: a superfluid of a new type.

We study, in a fully nonperturbative calculation, a dilute system of spin 1/2 interacting fermions, characterized by an infinite scattering length at finite temperatures. Various thermodynamic properties and the condensate fraction are calculated and we also determine the critical temperature for the superfluid-normal phase transition in this regime. The thermodynamic behavior appears as a rather surprising and unexpected mélange of fermionic and bosonic features. The thermal response of a spin 1/2 fermion at the BCS-BEC crossover should be classified as that of a new type of superfluid.