Static structure factor of a strongly correlated Fermi gas at large momenta

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Published 4 August 2010 Europhysics Letters Association
, , Citation H. Hu et al 2010 EPL 91 20005 DOI 10.1209/0295-5075/91/20005

0295-5075/91/2/20005

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the static structure factor of an interacting Fermi gas near the BEC-BCS crossover at large momenta. Due to short-range two-body interactions, we show that the structure factor of unlike spin correlations S↑↓(q) falls off as 1/q in a universal scaling region with large momentum ℏq and large scattering length. The scaling coefficient is determined by the celebrated Tan's contact parameter, which links the short-range behavior of many-body systems to their universal thermodynamic properties. By implementing this structure-factor Tan relation together with the random-phase approximation and the virial expansion theory in various limiting cases, we show how to calculate S↑↓(q) at zero and finite temperatures for arbitrary interaction strengths, at momentum transfer higher than the Fermi momentum. Our results provide a way to experimentally confirm one of the Tan relations and to accurately measure the value of contact parameter.

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10.1209/0295-5075/91/20005