Meta-nematic, smectic and crystalline phases of dipolar fermions in an optical lattice

Abstract

It has been suggested that some strongly correlated matter might be understood qualitatively in terms of liquid crystalline phases intervening between the Fermi gas and the Wigner crystal or Mott insulator. We propose a tunable realisation of this soft quantum matter physics in an ultra-cold gas. It uses optical lattices and dipolar interactions to realise a particularly simple model. Our analysis reveals a rich phase diagram featuring a meta-nematic transition where the Fermi liquid changes dimensionality; a smectic phase (stripes); and a crystalline, `checkerboard' phase.

improved figure, added references, text shortened, typos corrected; to appear in Physical Review A (Rapid Communications)

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gas
• Interlayer superfluidity in bilayer systems of fermionic polar molecules
• Dysprosium magneto-optical traps
• Superfluidity and dimerization in a multilayered system of fermionic polar molecules
• Magnetic fluctuations and specific heat in NaxCoO2 near a Lifshitz topological transition
• Unconventional Spin Density Waves in Dipolar Fermi Gases
• Second-order interaction corrections to the Fermi surface and the quasiparticle properties of dipolar fermions in three dimensions