Josephson effect at finite temperature along the BCS-BEC crossover

Year: 2020

Authors: Piselli V., Simonucci S., Strinati Calvanese G.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Camerino, Phys Div, Sch Sci & Technol, I-62032 Camerino, MC, Italy; Ist Nazl Fis Nucl, Sez Perugia, I-06123 Perugia, PG, Italy; CNR INO, Ist Nazl Ott, Sede Firenze, I-50125 Florence, FI, Italy.

Abstract: The Josephson current-phase characteristics, that arise when a supercurrent flows across two fermionic superfluids separated by a potential barrier, can be controlled by varying either the interparticle coupling or the temperature. While the coupling dependence has been addressed in detail both theoretically and experimentally for an attractive Fermi gas undergoing the BCS-BEC crossover, a corresponding study of the temperature dependence of the Josephson characteristics is still lacking in this context. Here, we investigate the combined coupling and temperature dependence of the Josephson characteristics in a systematic way for a wide set of barriers, within ranges of height and width that can be experimentally explored. Our study smoothly connects the two limiting cases, of nonoverlapping composite bosons at low temperature described by the Gross-Piatevskii equation, and of strongly overlapping Cooper pairs near the critical temperature described by the Ginzburg-Landau equation. In this way, we are able to explore several interesting effects related to how the current-phase characteristics evolve along the BCS-BEC crossover as a function of temperature and of barrier shape. These effects include the coherence length outside the barrier and the pair penetration length inside the barrier (which is related to the proximity effect), as well as the temperature evolution of the Landau criterion in the limit of a vanishingly small barrier. A comparison is also presented between the available experimental data for the critical current and our theoretical results over a wide range of couplings along the BCS-BEC crossover.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW B

Volume: 102 (14)      Pages from: 144517-1  to: 144517-23

More Information: We are indebted to G. Deutscher for discussions and a critical reading of the manuscript, and to C. Di Castro and G. Roati for discussions. Partial financial support from the Italian MIUR under Project PRIN2017 (20172H2SC4) is acknowledged.
KeyWords: GINZBURG-LANDAU EQUATIONS; BOSE-CONDENSATION; SUPERCONDUCTIVITY; EVOLUTION; ORDER; GAS
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.102.144517

Citations: 9
data from “WEB OF SCIENCE” (of Thomson Reuters) are update at: 2024-11-17
References taken from IsiWeb of Knowledge: (subscribers only)
Connecting to view paper tab on IsiWeb: Click here
Connecting to view citations from IsiWeb: Click here