Title | Decay of Polarons and Molecules in a Strongly Polarized Fermi Gas |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2010 |
Authors | Bruun, GM, Massignan, P |
Refereed Designation | Refereed |
Journal | Phys. Rev. Lett. |
Volume | 105 |
Issue | 2 |
Pagination | 020403 |
Date Published | Jul |
Abstract | The ground state of an impurity immersed in a Fermi sea changes from a polaron to a molecule as the interaction strength is increased. We show here that the coupling between these two states is strongly suppressed due to a combination of phase-space effects and Fermi statistics, and that it vanishes much faster than the energy difference between the two states, thereby confirming the first order nature of the polaron-molecule transition. In the regime where each state is metastable, we find quasiparticle lifetimes which are much longer than what is expected for a usual Fermi liquid. Our analysis indicates that the decay rates are sufficiently slow to be experimentally observable. |
URL | http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.020403 |
DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.020403 |
