Thermography of the superfluid transition in a strongly interacting Fermi gas
Name
Yan, Z., Thermography of the superfluid transition in a strongly interacting Fermi gas, 2212.13752.pdf
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4.24 MB
Format
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Checksum (MD5)
61feab7ea1a84f5225e9e55071caa67a
Author(s)
Yan, Zhenjie
Patel, Parth B.
Mukherjee, Biswaroop
Vale, Chris J.
Fletcher, Richard J.
Zwierlein, Martin
Date Issued
February 8, 2024
Journal
Science
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Citation
Zhenjie Yan et al. ,Thermography of the superfluid transition in a strongly interacting Fermi gas.Science383,629-633(2024).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Heat transport is a fundamental property of all physical systems and can serve as a fingerprint identifying different
states of matter. In a normal liquid a hot spot diffuses while in a superfluid heat propagates as a wave called
second sound. Despite its importance for understanding quantum materials, direct imaging of heat transport is
challenging, and one usually resorts to detecting secondary effects, such as changes in density or pressure. Here
we establish thermography of a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas, a paradigmatic system whose properties
relate to strongly correlated electrons, nuclear matter and neutron stars. Just as the color of a glowing metal
reveals its temperature, the radiofrequency spectrum of the interacting Fermi gas provides spatially resolved
thermometry with sub-nanokelvin resolution. The superfluid phase transition is directly observed as the sudden
change from thermal diffusion to second sound propagation, and is accompanied by a peak in the second sound
diffusivity. The method yields the full heat and density response of the strongly interacting Fermi gas, and therefore
all defining properties of Landau’s two-fluid hydrodynamics. Our measurements serve as a benchmark for
theories of transport in strongly interacting fermionic matter.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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