Unusual Destruction and Enhancement of Superfluidity of Atomic Fermi Gases by Population Imbalance in a One-Dimensional Optical Lattice*

Abstract

We study the superfluid behavior of a population imbalanced ultracold atomic Fermi gases with a short range attractive interaction in a one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice, using a pairing fluctuation theory. We show that, besides widespread pseudogap phenomena and intermediate temperature superfluidity, the superfluid phase is readily destroyed except in a limited region of the parameter space. We find a new mechanism for pair hopping, assisted by the excessive majority fermions, in the presence of continuum-lattice mixing, which leads to an unusual constant Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) asymptote for T c that is independent of pairing strength. In result, on the BEC side of unitarity, superfluidity, when it exists, may be strongly enhanced by population imbalance.