Spin susceptibility and fluctuation corrections in the BCS-BEC crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas

Abstract

We investigate magnetic properties and effects of pairing fluctuations in the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer)-BEC (Bose-Einstein condensation) crossover regime of an ultracold Fermi gas. Recently, Liu and Hu, and Parish, pointed out that the strong-coupling theory developed by Nozières and Schmitt-Rink (NSR), which has been extensively used to successfully clarify various physical properties of cold Fermi gases, unphysically gives negative spin susceptibility in the BCS-BEC crossover region. The same problem is found to also exist in the ordinary non-self-consistent T-matrix approximation. In this paper, we clarify that this serious problem comes from incomplete treatment in term of pseudogap phenomena originating from strong pairing fluctuations, as well as effects of spin fluctuations on the spin susceptibility. Including these two key issues, we construct an extended T-matrix theory which can overcome this problem. The resulting positive spin susceptibility agrees well with the recent experiment on a 6Li Fermi gas done by Sanner and co-workers. We also apply our theory to a polarized Fermi gas to examine the superfluid phase transition temperature Tc, as a function of the polarization rate. Since the spin susceptibility is an important physical quantity, especially in singlet Fermi superfluids, our results would be useful in considering how singlet pairs appear above and below Tc in the BCS-BEC crossover regime of cold Fermi gases.