Kinetics of the Phase Separation Transition in Cold-Atom Boson-Fermion Mixtures

Abstract

We study the kinetics of the first order phase separation transition in boson-fermion cold-atom mixtures. At sufficiently low temperatures such a transition is driven by quantum fluctuations responsible for the formation of critical nuclei of a stable phase. Based on a microscopic description of interacting boson-fermion mixtures we derive an effective action for the critical droplet and obtain an asymptotic expression for the nucleation rate in the vicinity of the phase transition and near the spinodal instability of the mixed phase. We also discuss effects of dissipation which play a dominant role close to the transition point, and identify the regimes where quantum nucleation can be experimentally observed in cold-atom systems.

arXiv comment4 pages 1 figure, typos corrected

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• Observation of Phase Separation in a Strongly-Interacting Imbalanced Fermi Gas
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Quantum dark soliton (qubits) in Bose Einstein condensates
• Magnetic ordering and quantum statistical effects in strongly repulsive Fermi-Fermi and Bose-Fermi mixtures
• Odd-frequency pairing in a binary mixture of bosonic and fermionic cold atoms
• Quantum Nucleation and Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling in Cold-Atom Boson-Fermion Mixtures