Proposal for interferometric detection of the topological character of modulated superfluidity in ultracold Fermi gases

Abstract

A system with unequal populations of up and down fermions may exhibit a Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) phase characterized by periodic domain walls across which the order parameter changes sign and the excess polarization is localized. Despite fifty years of theoretical and experimental work, there has so far been no unambiguous observation of an LO phase. Here we propose an experiment in which two fermion clouds, prepared with unequal population imbalances, are allowed to expand and interfere. We show that a pattern of staggered fringes in the interference is unequivocal evidence of LO physics. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.