Effective theory of excitations in a Feshbach-resonant superfluid

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Mar 3;96(8):080401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.080401. Epub 2006 Feb 28.

Abstract

A strongly interacting Fermi gas, such as that of cold atoms operative near a Feshbach resonance, is difficult to study by perturbative many-body theory to go beyond mean-field approximation. Here I develop an effective field theory for the resonant superfluid based on broken symmetry. The theory retains both fermionic quasiparticles and superfluid phonons, the interaction between them being derived nonperturbatively. The theory converges and can be improved order by order, in a manner governed by a low energy expansion rather than by a coupling constant. I apply the effective theory to calculate the specific heat and discuss the theory with a recent heat capacity experiment.