Abstract:

Exciting new developments in the field of ultracold atoms make it possible to tune the two-body attractive interactions between fermionic atoms continuously from very weak to very strong; this not only changes the statistics from fermionic to bosonic but also bears on the nature of the superfluidity. In this talk, I discuss recent experiments which elucidate the nature of the superfluid phase as the interaction is continuously tuned via Feshbach resonances. These experiments are interpreted as displaying a "crossover" between BCS superfluidity and Bose-Einstein condensation. Of particular interest is the intermediate or crossover regime where the s-wave scattering length diverges. This regime provides a prototype for studying both high temperature superconductors and also strongly interacting Fermi gases which are also of interest to nuclear and astro-physicists. I will report recent progress in understanding superfluidity in these two condensed matter systems (cold atomic Fermi gases and high Tc superconductors) with particular emphasis on the former.
 
 
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