Crystalline phase of strongly interacting fermi mixtures

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Sep 28;99(13):130407. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.130407. Epub 2007 Sep 28.

Abstract

We show that the system of weakly bound molecules of heavy and light fermionic atoms is characterized by a long-range intermolecular repulsion and can undergo a gas-crystal quantum transition if the mass ratio exceeds a critical value. For the critical mass ratio above 100 obtained in our calculations, this crystalline order can be observed as a superlattice in an optical lattice for heavy atoms with a small filling factor. We also find that this novel system is sufficiently stable with respect to molecular relaxation into deep bound states and to the process of trimer formation.