Breaking and trapping Cooper pairs by Rydberg-molecule spectroscopy in atomic Fermi superfluids

Chih-Chun Chien; S. I. Mistakidis; H. R. Sadeghpour

doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.110.L051303

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Breaking and trapping Cooper pairs by Rydberg-molecule spectroscopy in atomic Fermi superfluids

Chih-Chun Chien, S. I. Mistakidis, H. R. Sadeghpour

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevA.110.L051303 · Physical Review A

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Abstract

We propose a spectroscopic probe of the breaking and localization of Cooper pairs in an atomic Fermi superfluid interacting with a Rydberg impurity. This is achieved by monitoring the formation of diatomic and triatomic ultralong-range molecular species in the superfluid across the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)–Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover. The triatomic Rydberg molecule in the BEC regime heralds the trapping of a tightly bound Cooper pair, reminiscent of pion capture in nuclear matter, while the breaking of a Cooper pair on the BCS side by a diatomic Rydberg molecule is evocative of binary-star tidal disruption by a black hole. Spectroscopy of the Fermi superfluid and Rydberg molecules allows for an estimation of the Cooper-pair size while the Rydberg molecule binding energies discern many-body pairing effects.