Spin Drag of a Fermi Gas in a Harmonic Trap

Olga Goulko (1) , Frédéric Chevy (2) , Carlos Lobo (3)

1 Department of Physics
2 LKB (Lhomond) - Laboratoire Kastler Brossel
3 School of Mathematics

Using a Boltzmann equation approach, we analyze how the spin drag of a trapped interacting fermionic mixture is influenced by the non-homogeneity of the system in a classical regime where the temperature is much larger than the Fermi temperature. We show that for very elongated geometries, the spin damping rate can be related to the spin conductance of an infinitely long cylinder. We characterize analytically the spin conductance both in the hydrodynamic and collisionless limits and discuss the influence of the velocity profile. Our results are in good agreement with recent experiments and provide a quantitative benchmark for further studies of spin drag in ultracold gases.

Mots clés: Fermi gases; Boltzmann's Equation; Spin transport

Domaines: Gaz Quantiques [cond-mat.quant-gas]

Olga Goulko, Frédéric Chevy, Carlos Lobo. Spin Drag of a Fermi Gas in a Harmonic Trap. Physical Review Letters, 2013, 111, pp.PRL 111, 190402 (2013). ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.190402⟩. ⟨hal-00847770v2⟩