corner
corner

Phys. Rev. A 72, 053613 (2005) [5 pages]

Anomalous quantum mass flow of atoms in p-wave resonance

Download: PDF (300 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

W. Vincent Liu
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA

Received 27 March 2005; published 14 November 2005

I analyze an atomic Fermi gas with a planar p-wave interaction, motivated by the experimentally observed anisotropy in p-wave Feshbach resonances. An axial superfluid state is verified. A domain wall object is discovered to be a new topological defect of this superfluid and an explicit solution has been found. Gapless quasiparticles appear as bound states on the wall, dispersing in the continuum of reduced dimensions. They are chiral, deeply related to fermion zero modes in quantum chromodynamics. The chirality of the superfluid is manifested by a persistent anomalous mass current of atoms in the ground state. This quantum phenomenon is a prediction for future experiments.

© 2005 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.053613
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.72.053613
PACS:
03.75.Ss, 11.30.Er, 11.30.Rd