Pierbiagio Pieri

We investigate the zero-temperature transition from the polarized normal phase to the FFLO state in a two-dimensional Fermi gas by means of a diagrammatic t -matrix approach. We first show that the standard non-self-consistent theory produces an unphysical critical polarization because of a severe violation of the Luttinger theorem. Motivated by this observation, we introduce a minimal self-consistent extension that largely restores compliance with the Luttinger theorem while preserving the analytical simplicity of the original formalism. This leads to a physically consistent critical polarization over the whole interaction range. Building on this improved description, we characterize the quantum critical behavior of the FFLO transition through the quasiparticle decay rates, quasiparticle weights, momentum distributions, and the critical dynamics of both fermionic and bosonic degrees of freedom. We further compare the two- and three-dimensional systems, showing that their critical properties can be understood within a unified geometrical picture based on the nesting of the majority and minority Fermi surfaces. Finally, for a three-dimensional lattice, we demonstrate within the Hertz–Millis framework that vertex corrections are irrelevant, thereby placing the FFLO quantum phase transition in the mean-field universality class, in close analogy with the itinerant antiferromagnet transition.

We analyze a two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixture at zero temperature in the presence of a tunable Bose-Fermi attraction. We adopt a diagrammatic T -matrix approach and study the behavior of several thermodynamic quantities for the two species as functions of density, mass ratio, and coupling strength. These include the chemical potentials, the boson momentum distribution function, the condensate density, and Tan's contact parameter. We analytically demonstrate that the present T -matrix formalism recovers the correct second-order perturbative expansion of the chemical potentials in the weak-coupling regime, and test it numerically. The near-universal behavior of the condensate fraction already found in prior work for the mass-balanced case is confirmed for different masses and becomes even more accurate when the boson mass is large. The mass imbalance emerges as an additional control parameter that qualitatively affects the bosonic momentum distribution. In particular, we found that it can be used to allow for the experimental observation of a peculiar peak in the boson momentum distribution at finite momentum.

We investigate the problem of mechanical stability in two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures at zero temperature, focusing on systems with a tunable Bose-Fermi (BF) interaction and a weak but finite boson-boson (BB) repulsion. The analysis is carried out within the framework of the lowest-order constrained variational (LOCV) approach, which allows for a nonperturbative treatment of strong interspecies correlations while retaining analytical transparency. The BF interaction is modeled by a properly regularized attractive contact potential, enabling the exploration of both the attractive and repulsive energy branches. We determine the minimal BB repulsion required to ensure mechanical stability of the mixture by evaluating the inverse compressibility matrix over the full range of BF coupling strengths, within the domain of validity of the LOCV approximation. The interaction contribution to the energy is benchmarked against available experimental data and quantum Monte Carlo results in the single-impurity limit, showing good agreement. Our analysis reveals how the critical BB coupling depends on interaction strength, density imbalance, and mass ratio. In particular, we find that mixtures with equal boson and fermion masses exhibit enhanced stability, requiring the smallest BB repulsion to prevent mechanical instability. In this case, a relatively small BB interaction is sufficient to stabilize attractive mixtures for all values of the BF interaction. These results provide a theoretical framework for assessing stability conditions in experimentally realizable two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures with tunable interactions.

We investigate the problem of mechanical stability in two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures at zero temperature, focusing on systems with a tunable Bose-Fermi (BF) interaction and a weak but finite boson-boson (BB) repulsion. The analysis is carried out within the framework of the lowest-order constrained variational (LOCV) approach, which allows for a non-perturbative treatment of strong interspecies correlations while retaining analytical transparency. The BF interaction is modeled by a properly regularized attractive contact potential, enabling the exploration of both the attractive and repulsive energy branches. We determine the minimal BB repulsion required to ensure mechanical stability of the mixture by evaluating the inverse compressibility matrix over the full range of BF coupling strengths, within the domain of validity of the LOCV approximation. The interaction contribution to the energy is benchmarked against available experimental data and Quantum Monte Carlo results in the single-impurity limit, showing good agreement. Our analysis reveals how the critical BB coupling depends on interaction strength, density imbalance, and mass ratio. In particular, we find that mixtures with equal boson and fermion masses exhibit enhanced stability, requiring the smallest BB repulsion to prevent mechanical instability. In this case, a relatively small BB interaction is sufficient to stabilize attractive mixtures for all values of the BF interaction. These results provide a theoretical framework for assessing stability conditions in experimentally realizable two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixtures with tunable interactions.

We investigate the two-dimensional motion of a single vortex orbiting a pinned anti-vortex in a unitary Fermi superfluid. By analyzing its trajectory, we measure the yet-unknown longitudinal and transverse mutual friction coefficients, which quantify the vortex-mediated coupling between the normal and superfluid components. Both coefficients increase while approaching the superfluid transition. They provide access to the vortex Hall angle, which is linked to the relaxation time of the localized quasiparticles occupying Andreev bound states within the vortex core, and to the vortex Reynolds number Re_α associated with the transition from laminar to quantum turbulent flows. We compare our results with numerical simulations and an analytic model originally formulated for superfluid ³He, finding good agreement. Our work suggests that vortex dynamics in unitary Fermi superfluids is essentially affected by the interplay between delocalized thermal excitations and vortex-bound quasiparticles. Further, it provides a novel testbed for studying vortex dynamics at finite temperatures.

We investigate the mechanical stability of Bose-Fermi mixtures at zero temperature in the presence of a tunable Feshbach resonance, which induces a competition between boson condensation and boson-fermion pairing when the boson density is smaller than the fermion density. Using a many-body diagrammatic approach validated by fixed-node Quantum Monte Carlo calculations and supported by recent experimental observations, we determine the minimal amount of boson-boson repulsion required to guarantee the stability of the mixture across the entire range of boson-fermion interactions from weak to strong coupling. Our stability phase diagrams indicate that mixtures with boson-to-fermion mass ratios near two, such as the ^{87} 87 Rb- ^{40} 40 K system, exhibit optimal stability conditions. Moreover, by applying our results to a recent experiment with a ^{23} 23 Na- ^{40} 40 K mixture, we find that the boson-boson repulsion was insufficient to ensure stability, suggesting that the experimental timescale was short enough to avoid mechanical collapse. On the other hand, we also show that even in the absence of boson-boson repulsion, Bose-Fermi mixtures become intrinsically stable beyond a certain coupling strength, preceding the quantum phase transition associated with the vanishing of the bosonic condensate. We thus propose an experimental protocol for observing this quantum phase transition in a mechanically stable configuration.

We consider a mixture of bosons and spin-polarized fermions in two dimensions at zero temperature with a tunable Bose-Fermi attraction. By adopting a diagrammatic T T -matrix approach, we analyze the behavior of several thermodynamic quantities for the two species as a function of the density ratio and coupling strength, including the chemical potentials, the momentum distribution functions, the boson condensate density, and the Tan’s contact parameter. By increasing the Bose-Fermi attraction, we find that the condensate is progressively depleted and Bose-Fermi pairs form, with a small fraction of condensed bosons surviving even for strong Bose-Fermi attraction. This small condensate proves sufficient to hybridize molecular and atomic states, producing quasi-particles with unusual Fermi liquid features. A nearly universal behavior of the condensate fraction, the bosonic momentum distribution, and Tan’s contact parameter with respect to the density ratio is also found.

We derive analytically the leading beyond-mean-field contributions to the zero-temperature equation of state and to the fermionic quasiparticle residue and effective mass of a dilute Bose-Fermi mixture in two dimensions. In the repulsive case, we perform quantum Monte Carlo simulations for two representative bosonic concentrations and equal masses, extending a method for correcting finite-size effects in fermionic gases to Bose-Fermi mixtures. We find good agreement between analytic expressions and numerical results for weak interactions, while significant discrepancies appear in the regime close to mechanical instability, above which we provide evidence of phase separation of the bosonic component.