Fermionic superfluidity with positive scattering length

Abstract

Superfluidity in an ultracold Fermi gas is usually associated with either a negative scattering length or the presence of a two-body bound state. We show that none of these ingredients is necessary to achieve superfluidity. Using a narrow Feshbach resonance with strong repulsive background interactions, the effective interactions can be repulsive for small energies and attractive for energies around the Fermi energy, similar to the effective interactions between electrons in a metallic superconductor. This can result in BCS-type superfluidity while the scattering length is positive. © 2006 The American Physical Society.