Competition Between Normal Superfluidity and Larkin-Ovchinnikov Phases of Polarized Fermi Gases in Elongated Traps

Abstract

By applying the recently proposed antisymmetric superfluid local density approximation (ASLDA) to strongly interacting polarized atomic gases in elongated traps, we predict clear signals of a type of Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) phase that could be accessible by increasing adiabatically the trap aspect ratio. We compare ASLDA with the Superfluid Local Density Approximation (SLDA), previously introduced for unpolarized systems. In particular, we find that the deformation of the superfluid core in distorted traps that appears in the ground-state solution of SLDA, as well as in some Bogoliubov-de Gennes treatments, is washed out in more realistic ASLDA calculations.