Temperature dependence and finite-size effects in collective modes of superfluid-trapped Fermi gases

We discuss collective monopole and quadrupole excitations of a collisionless gas of trapped Fermionic atoms in the superfluid BCS phase, comparing the fully microscopic Bogoliubov–de Gennes and quasiparticle random-phase approximation method with widely used semiclassical methods. In particular, the microscopic treatment allows us to address the questions of temperature dependence and nontrivial dependence on the trap parameters, which cannot be answered within the semiclassical approach. The main result concerning the temperature dependence is a strong Landau damping at intermediate temperature, which disappears in the limits of zero and critical temperature. However, even at zero temperature, considerable deviations from superfluid hydrodynamics are found if the trap frequency is of the same order of magnitude as the pairing gap.