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# Exact solutions for diluted spin glasses and optimization problems

## Abstract

We study the low temperature properties of p-spin glass models with finite connectivity and of some optimization problems. Using a one-step functional replica symmetry breaking Ansatz we can solve exactly the saddle-point equations for graphs with uniform connectivity. The resulting ground state energy is in perfect agreement with numerical simulations. For fluctuating connectivity graphs, the same Ansatz can be used in a variational way: For $`p`$-spin models (known as $`p`$-XOR-SAT in computer science) it provides the exact configurational entropy together with the dynamical and static critical connectivities (for $`p=3`$, $`\gamma _d=0.818`$ and $`\gamma _s=0.918`$ resp.), whereas for hard optimization problems like 3-SAT or Bicoloring it provides new upper bounds for their critical thresholds ($`\gamma _c^{var}=4.396`$ and $`\gamma _c^{var}=2.149`$ resp.).

The nature of the glassy phase and of the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of physical systems are two intertwined aspects of the behavior of many complex systems found in different fields, ranging from physics or biology to computer science and game theory. The existence and the characterization of long time states, and the question of relaxation times are important open issues of modern statistical mechanics and probability theory.

Fully connected spin glasses have served as prototype models able to provide a highly non trivial static and off-equilibrium phenomenology already at the mean-field level . However, some important features of complex real-world systems heavily rely on the connectivity pattern which is particularly simple in these systems.

For instance, super-cooled liquids and structural glasses are characterized by a finite number of short range interactions for each particle (bounded by the so called kissing number of the particles), which leads to a complex structure of energy and entropy barriers in phase space. Heterogeneities in both the static and the off-equilibrium regimes witness such underlying constraints .

In computer science, non-trivial ensembles of hard combinatorial optimization problems, the so called NP-complete problems , typically map onto spin glasses with finite average connectivity (or degree) at zero temperature . In the last years methods from statistical physics have been very useful in order to study phase transitions in such problems . The hardest among these share characteristics that are largely independent on the specific algorithms adopted for their solution. Important features such as solution time or memory requirements are conjectured to be strictly related to the geometrical structure of their low temperature phase space . For a survey on the state of the art we address the reader to two recent special issues .

The main technical obstacle for the development of a statistical physics theory over finite degree graphs has been the extension of the Parisi replica symmetry breaking (RSB) scheme to the functional level . The replica symmetric (RS) phases are described by a single probability distribution function of the effective fields, capturing the site-to-site fluctuations of the local magnetization. On the contrary, when the symmetry among replicas breaks down, there appear many pure states, each one endowed with its own effective field distribution. The site-to-site fluctuations induce correlations among such probability distributions. The overall free energy has to be optimized in a large functional space which becomes more and more complex as the Parisi scheme is iterated. Recently in  a population dynamics algorithm has been introduced which is able, for large enough computer resources, to reconstruct the field distributions that lead to the numerical solution of the one-step RSB (1RSB) equations in full generality.

In this Letter we re-examine in the appropriate 1RSB context an Ansatz previously introduced in  to get an approximated solution of the Viana-Bray model. That Ansatz, which neglects site-to-site fluctuations, allows for great simplifications in the functional equations describing the low temperature regime of spin glasses and optimization problems defined on graphs with finite connectivity. The Ansatz solves exactly the saddle-point equations for models defined over uniform degree random hypergraphs and it is simple enough to allow for the explicit computation of the thermodynamic quantities at low temperature, which remarkably agree with numerics. As representative instances, we compute the ground state (GS) energy of the $`p`$-spin glass and of the Bicoloring problem. In both cases, the problem of finding the GS is a hard computational task (NP-hard). To the best of our knowledge, the one presented here is the first exact, fully analytical solution for diluted models in the RSB phase.

For the $`p`$-spin glass with fluctuating connectivities where site-to-site correlations are in principle important, the same Ansatz allows to evaluate exactly the configurational entropy and the dynamical and static transition points found as the average connectivity is increased . In computer science this model is known as random $`p`$-XOR-SAT  and its complete probabilistic characterization is considered an open problem (at present only lower and upper rigorous bounds to the critical threshold are known ). From a combinatorial standpoint this problem has straight connections with the well-studied domain of random linear systems over finite fields, with applications in coding and cryptography .

In the fluctuating connectivity framework, we have also tested the method as a variational approach to the study of the GS properties of random NP-complete combinatorial problems, such as random 3-SAT or Bicoloring , obtaining the currently most accurate analytical estimation of their critical SAT/UNSAT thresholds (see below).

In what follows we shall concentrate on the $`p=3`$ spin interactions, the generalization to arbitrary $`p`$ being straightforward. The Hamiltonian of the models we have chosen to study reads $`H=_{[i,j,k]E}G[S_i,S_j,S_k]`$, where $`S_i=\pm 1`$ are Ising spins and $`E`$ is the set of triples (plaquettes), which form a random hypergraph (locally the graph has the topology of a Husimi tree). In the fixed connectivity case, every index $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$ must appear in $`E`$ the same number $`k+1`$ of times. However the presence of hyperloops  of length of the order $`\mathrm{log}(N)`$ induce non trivial contributions to the free-energy. In the fluctuating connectivity case, each possible plaquette is chosen at random with probability $`\gamma /N^2`$.

In the 3-spin glass case, the local interaction reads $`G[S_i,S_j,S_k]=J_{ijk}S_iS_jS_k`$ with $`J_{ijk}=\pm 1`$ randomly. For the Bicoloring problem we have $`G[S_i,S_j,S_k]=\delta (S_i,S_j)\delta (S_i,S_k)=\frac{1}{4}(S_iS_j+S_iS_k+S_iS_j+1)`$. Each interaction adds zero energy only if the spin configuration is not monochromatic, i.e. not all spins on the plaquette are equal. The optimization problem amounts at minimizing the number of monochromatic plaquettes.

Firstly we focus on the fixed connectivity case (with connectivity $`k+1`$). In order to calculate the averaged free energy at inverse temperature $`\beta `$ we resort to the replica method, where the average free energy is evaluated from an analytic continuation of the integer moments of the partition function . The replicated free energy reads

$$\begin{array}{c}\beta f_n=\overline{Z^n}=\underset{f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })}{\text{extr}}[k\mathrm{ln}\left(\underset{\stackrel{}{\sigma }}{}f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })^{\frac{k+1}{k}}\right)\frac{k+1}{3}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{ln}\left(\underset{\stackrel{}{\sigma }_1,\stackrel{}{\sigma }_2,\stackrel{}{\sigma }_3}{}f(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_1)f(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_2)f(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_3)e^{\beta _{a=1}^n𝒢[\sigma _1^a,\sigma _2^a,\sigma _3^a]}\right)],\end{array}$$
(1)
with $`𝒢[x,y,z]=xyz`$ for the spin glass and $`𝒢[x,y,z]=(xy+yz+xz+1)/4`$ for Bicoloring. $`a=1,..,n`$ is the replica index, $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }=\{\sigma ^1,..,\sigma ^n\}`$ is a vector of $`n`$ Ising variables and $`f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })c(\stackrel{}{\sigma })^k`$, where $`c(\stackrel{}{\sigma })=N^1_i\delta (\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ counts the fraction of sites $`i`$ having replicated spin $`S_i^a=\sigma ^a`$. The functional order parameter $`f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ must be symmetric in $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$. From Eq.(1) one obtains the following saddle point equations

$`f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{D^k(\stackrel{}{\sigma })}{_\stackrel{}{\sigma }D^k(\stackrel{}{\sigma })}},`$ (2)
$`D(\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{\tau },\stackrel{}{\mu }}{}}f(\stackrel{}{\tau })f(\stackrel{}{\mu })\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta {\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}}𝒢[\sigma ^a,\tau ^a,\mu ^a]\right).`$ (3)
The above equations admit a paramagnetic and a spin glass solution. As long as replica symmetry holds (e.g. in the paramagnetic or ferromagnetic phases) the order parameter $`f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ depends only on the sum $`_a\sigma ^a`$, i.e. on a single probability distribution of effective local fields. However, in the glassy phase the RS solution is not optimal (and yet stable), and one needs a RSB Ansatz, which is in general very complicated, even in the simplest case of 1RSB. Nevertheless in our case, the observation that the sites are locally equivalent suggests to neglect site-to-site fluctuations in the distribution of the effective fields. In the replica formalism this fact is reflected in the use of the following factorized Ansatz

$$f(\stackrel{}{\sigma })=\underset{g=1}{\overset{n/m}{}}\stackrel{~}{f}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_g)=\underset{g=1}{\overset{n/m}{}}𝑑hP(h)\frac{e^{\beta h_{a=1}^m\sigma _g^a}}{(2\mathrm{cosh}\beta h)^m},$$
(4)
where the $`n`$ replicas have been divided into $`n/m`$ groups of $`m`$ replicas each and $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_g`$ is an $`m`$-dimensional vector with the components belonging to the $`g`$-th group. The general interpretation of the 1RSB order parameter  shows that $`P(h)`$ is the probability distribution of the cavity field, i.e. the field on a site after one of the interactions of that site has been removed. The above Ansatz is consistent with the saddle point equations (2,3), and the very same equations are verified by $`\stackrel{~}{f}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_g)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{D}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_g)`$ with the sum in (3) running only up to $`m`$.

The RSB saddle point equations are different for the two models. In the 3-spin case we find

$$\frac{P(h)}{(2\mathrm{cosh}\beta h)^m}=A_k^1\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\frac{du_iQ(u_i)}{(\mathrm{cosh}\beta u_i)^m}\delta \left(h\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}u_i\right),$$
(5)
where $`Q(u)=𝒟h𝒟g\delta [uu(h,g)]`$, with $`𝒟h=dhP(h)`$ and $`\mathrm{tanh}[\beta u(h,g)]=\mathrm{tanh}(\beta )\mathrm{tanh}(\beta h)\mathrm{tanh}(\beta g)`$, and $`A_k`$ normalizes the $`P(h)`$. For Bicoloring we find

$`{\displaystyle \frac{P(h)}{(2\mathrm{cosh}\beta h)^m}}`$ $`=`$ $`A_k^1{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒟h_i𝒟g_iW(h_i,g_i)^m}{(4\mathrm{cosh}(\beta h_i)\mathrm{cosh}(\beta g_i))^m}}`$ (7)
$`\delta \left(h{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}}t(h_i,g_i)\right),`$
where $`t(h,g)=\frac{1}{2}\beta ^1\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _{}/\alpha _+)`$ and $`W(h,g)=\sqrt{\alpha _{}\alpha _+}`$ with $`\alpha _\pm =2\mathrm{cosh}[\beta (hg)]+2\mathrm{cosh}[\beta (h+g\pm 1)]e^\beta `$. The RS (resp. paramagnetic) equation is recovered for $`m=n`$ (resp. $`m=1`$). As usual, in order to find the thermodynamical free-energy a maximization of the free-energy functional with respect to $`m`$ should be performed.

For a generic temperature the solutions to (5) and (7) can be easily found numerically with a RS-like population dynamics, which requires much less computational effort than the 1RSB algorithm of Ref. .

Interestingly enough in the limit of zero temperature we can solve the equations analytically. Indeed for $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ we have $`u(h,g)\mathrm{sign}(hg)\mathrm{min}(1,h,g)`$ and $`t(h,g)\mathrm{sign}(h)\mathrm{min}(1,h,g)\theta (hg)`$ (where $`\theta `$ is the step function). Then both $`u(h,g)`$ and $`t(h,g)`$ can take only the values $`0`$ and $`\pm 1`$ for integer valued cavity fields. Rational valued solutions also exist and yet vanish close to the free energy maximum.

For the $`p`$-spin with odd connectivity $`k+1`$ and for the Bicoloring the analytical expressions are quite involved and will be given elsewhere . For $`p`$-spin with even connectivities (i.e. odd $`k`$) the solution can be written in a very compact way,

$$f_0(y,k+1)=\frac{2k1}{3}g(y,k+1)\frac{2k+2}{3}g(y,k),$$
(8)
$$\text{with}g(y,k)=\frac{1}{y}\mathrm{ln}\left[2^k\underset{i=0}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k}{i}\right)e^{y|k2i|}\right],$$
(9)
where $`y`$ is the zero temperature limit of the quantity $`\beta m`$ which turns out to be finite. The GS energy ($`e_{gs}`$) corresponds to the maximum of $`f_0`$ . For connectivities smaller than 4 for the $`p`$-spin and 7 for the Bicoloring the maximum is always in $`y=\mathrm{}`$ and corresponds to the RS paramagnetic solution $`P(h)=\delta (h)`$. The RS spin glass solution, located in $`y=0`$, has always a lower energy with respect to the physical one. For some connectivities the free energy values ($`e_{gs}`$) are reported in the tables, together with the corresponding $`y=y^{}`$ saddle-point values. For the 3-spin case we also report numerical estimations of the GS energy ($`e_{gs}^{num}`$) obtained by extrapolating the results of exhaustive enumerations (sizes up to $`N=60`$ averaged over 1000–10000 samples). Moreover in  the $`y^{}`$ value for the 3-spin model with $`k+1=4`$ has been estimated to be 1.41(1), perfectly compatible with our analytic value.

A further check of the analytic solution in the $`p`$-spin case is provided by the proper convergence, in the limit $`k\mathrm{}`$, to the exact solution of the fully connected $`p`$-spin model by Gardner  after a proper rescaling of the coupling.

In the case of models defined over non-homogeneous graphs the Ansatz can be used to obtain approximate or, in some cases, exact variational estimates of the thermodynamic functions. We have considered three representative cases: the 3-spin model and the Bicoloring problem over random hypergraphs with a Poisson distribution of site connectivities and the random 3-SAT problem.

For the 3-spin model we obtained estimates of the dynamical and static critical points looking at the configurational entropy. It has been shown in  that in this model, the GS are clustered. Given a GS there is an exponential number of other GS which can be reached through GS paths where subsequent GS differ only by a finite number of spin flips. For small average connectivity there is a unique cluster, while above a threshold $`\gamma _d`$ the number of disconnected cluster become exponentially large. The configurational entropy is the logarithm of the number of cluster per spin, and can be computed in the replica 1RSB formalism as $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\gamma )=\frac{f}{m}|_{m=1}`$ . $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\gamma )`$ jumps to a non zero value at the dynamical critical point $`\gamma _d`$ and then it vanishes again at the static critical point $`\gamma _s`$. Using arguments put forward in , one can show  that, due to the triviality of the paramagnetic phase of the model , where $`P(h)=\delta (h)`$, the factorized Ansatz (4) yields the exact result. The resulting expression reads

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(\gamma )=\mathrm{ln}(2)[r3\gamma r^2(1r)\gamma r^3],$$
(10)
with $`r`$ solving the $`m=1`$ saddle point equation $`1r=\mathrm{exp}(3\gamma r^2)`$. The above expression is different from zero between $`\gamma _d=0.818`$ and $`\gamma _s=0.918`$ (see bold line in Fig. 1) where it equals the difference between the paramagnetic and the ferromagnetic entropies . The above critical points coincide with numerical estimates .

In this model the static RSB transition point $`\gamma _s`$ coincides with the critical point $`\gamma _c`$ beyond which the system becomes frustrated, that is, no longer all interactions can be satisfied at the same time and therefore the GS energy becomes positive . In computer science this point is known as the SAT/UNSAT critical threshold: $`\gamma _c=\gamma _s=0.918`$ thus provides the critical threshold for random 3-XOR-SAT, in perfect agreement with the numerical estimation .

Above $`\gamma _s`$ the factorized Ansatz ceases to be exact and can be used only at a variational level.

In order to check numerically Eq.(10), we have performed a GS clustering. This task is in general very hard due to the large number of GS and because of the lack of a proper definition of clusters in a finite size systems. However in this model calculations are easier, thanks to the presence of only two relevant overlaps between GS: The internal overlap equals $`r`$ and is always larger than 0.7, while different clusters are almost orthogonal. This leads to an optimal cut-off of 0.7 for the numerical identification of clusters. The results shown in Fig. 1 are in remarkable agreement with the analytical curve.

Finally, in models where the configurational entropy is likely to be zero and correlation among clusters are stronger, like Bicoloring over fluctuating degree random graphs and 3-SAT , the dynamic and static critical points coincide ($`\gamma _d=\gamma _s`$) and precede the SAT/UNSAT critical point $`\gamma _c`$ (usually called $`\alpha _c`$). Though less effective, the factorized Ansatz with integer valued fields still provides an estimate for $`\gamma _c`$ . Namely $`\gamma _c^{var}=4.3962`$ for 3-SAT and $`\gamma _c^{var}=2.149`$ for Bicoloring, which improve present rigorous bounds (recently reviewed in ).

Summarizing, we have studied a factorization Ansatz which allows to solve exactly diluted spin-glass and optimization models, on homogeneous hypergraphs. These analytical results can play a crucial role in testing convergence of heuristic algorithms. For non-homogeneous graphs the Ansatz still allows to get very good results (some of them exact) as we have shown for the $`p`$-spin, the Bicoloring and the 3-SAT problems. Encouraged by the recent rigorous results obtained on simpler models in , we trust that an alternative and mathematically rigorous derivation of our results may be possible.

We thank M. Mézard, G. Parisi and M. Weigt for several useful discussions.


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# Prospect of creating a composite fermi/bose superfluid

## Abstract

We show that composite fermi/bose superfluids can be created in cold-atom traps by employing a Feshbach resonance or coherent photoassociation. The bosonic molecular condensate created in this way implies a new fermion pairing mechanism associated with the exchange of fermion pairs between the molecular condensate and an atomic fermion superfluid. We predict macroscopically coherent, Josephson-like oscillations of the atomic and molecular populations in response to a sudden change of the molecular energy, and suggest that these oscillations will provide an experimental signature of the pairing.

The cold-atom technology that has led to the observation of dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC’s)  enables the creation and study of novel superfluids having a degree of flexibility that is highly unusual in traditional low temperature physics. In addition to the observed boson gas superfluids, the prospect of studying fermion superfluidity in the gas phase provides a powerful motivation  for the atom cooling efforts with fermion isotopes . S-wave Cooper pairing – the most likely mechanism for achieving fermion superfluidity in the low-density gases – relies on the mutual attraction of two distinguishable types of fermions . In this Letter, we show that some of the techniques that are being developed  to increase the mutual attraction and, hence, the critical temperature for Cooper-pairing, create a fundamentally novel superfluid state. Specifically, the interaction-altering schemes that involve a coherent atom-molecule coupling such as the Feshbach resonance  and coherent photoassociation  create a condensate of bosonic molecules mutually coherent with the atomic Cooper-paired gas. In treating the dynamics of this system we note an interesting experimental signature: the system responds to a sudden change of the single-molecule energy by means of macroscopically coherent, Josephson-like oscillations of the atomic and molecular populations.

Here we discuss the effects on a mixture of $`\pm 1`$ fermion atoms of a Feshbach resonance that coherently converts $`\pm `$ atom pairs to molecules $`m`$. Restricting ourselves to the relevant s-wave processes, the coupling is described by the term

$$H_{am}=d^3𝐫\alpha [\widehat{\psi }_m^{}\widehat{\psi }_{+1}\widehat{\psi }_1+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.]$$
(1)
in the Hamiltonian. Earlier , we had pointed out that such interaction can produce mutually coherent atom-molecule boson superfluids. In the fermion gas mixture, we now show that this interaction coherently couples an atomic paired fermion superfluid to a BEC of $`m`$-molecules. We characterize boson superfluidity in the broken symmetry description by the appearance of a complex-valued order parameter, the condensate field $`\varphi `$: $`\varphi (𝐫)=\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)`$, where $`\widehat{\psi }`$ is the bosonic annihilation field operator and $`𝐫`$ the position. Similarly, we characterize s-wave pairing of fermionic atoms in internal states $`\pm 1`$ by a pairing-field order parameter $`\widehat{\psi }_\sigma (𝐫)\widehat{\psi }_\sigma (𝐫)=F_\sigma (𝐫)0`$, where $`\sigma =\pm 1`$. It is not difficult to see that the interaction (1) implies the presence of a bose condensate of molecules ($`\widehat{\psi }_m0`$) if the atoms are fermi-paired ($`\widehat{\psi }_{+1}\widehat{\psi }_10`$). The equation of motion for $`\widehat{\psi }_m=\varphi _m`$, obtained by taking the expectation value of the Heisenberg equation $`i\mathrm{}\widehat{\psi }_m/t=[\widehat{\psi }_m,\widehat{H}]`$, contains a source term $`\alpha \widehat{\psi }_{+1}\widehat{\psi }_10`$, implying that $`\varphi _m`$ cannot remain zero. Moreover, as we will show, the interaction (1) plays a more fundamental role than in the BEC analogue: the atom-molecule interaction causes the superfluidity and provides a new pairing mechanism.

From a theoretical point of view, however, this mechanism is not entirely new as the Hamiltonian (1) has been proposed as a phenomenological model for high $`T_c`$ superconductivity . However, experimental investigations have cast serious doubt on the validity of the so-called fermion-boson model to explain high $`T_c`$ superconductivity. It is then important to realize that, in contrast to the phenomenological description of high $`T_c`$ superconductors, the atomic gases are described by a first principle’s theory with parameters that are calculated and measured unambiguously. We also note that the trapped atom systems have a different and much wider range of experimentally controllable variables: the external potentials, inter-particle scattering lengths, fermion densities, relative numbers of unlike fermions, the strength ($`\alpha `$) of the atom-molecule coupling and the value of the single molecule energy can all be varied. In particular, the real time variation of the single molecule energy suggests testing the mutual long-range coherence by observing Josephson-like oscillations in the atomic and molecular populations. Prompted by this exciting possibility we develop a time-dependent mean-field description of the dynamics, different from the usual statistical treatments of the fermion-boson model.

We start with the Heisenberg equations for the field operators, $`\widehat{\psi }_m`$ and $`\widehat{\psi }_{\pm 1}`$. As we will justify a posteriori, the scattering length interactions can be neglected and we obtain

$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_{+1}=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{2m}}+V_{+1}+ϵ_{+1}\right]\widehat{\psi }_{+1}\alpha \widehat{\psi }_m\widehat{\psi }_1^{},`$ (2)
$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_1=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{2m}}+V_1+ϵ_1\right]\widehat{\psi }_1+\alpha \widehat{\psi }_m\widehat{\psi }_{+1}^{},`$ (3)
$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_m=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{4m}}+V_m+ϵ_m\right]\widehat{\psi }_m+\alpha \widehat{\psi }_{+1}\widehat{\psi }_1,`$ (4)
where $`V_{\pm 1}`$ and $`V_m`$ denote the external potentials and $`ϵ_m`$ and $`ϵ_{\pm 1}`$ the internal energies. The fact that fermion atoms of different spin projection can have significantly different energies in the external field of magnetic traps (e.g., $`ϵ_1<<ϵ_{+1}`$) does not necessarily prevent their pairing. Though the conversion of atoms from the $`+1`$ to the $`1`$ state would lower the energy, the necessary spin-flip interaction may be negligible, as demonstrated by the simultaneous trapping of essentially stable populations of atoms in non-degenerate internal states . Such systems reach a quasi-equilibrium, characterized, in this case, by fixed fermion numbers: a total of $`N_+`$ ($`+1`$)–atoms and $`N_{}`$ ($`1`$)–atoms, with respective chemical potentials $`\mu _+`$ and $`\mu _{}`$. Chemical equilibrium further dictates that $`\mu _m=\mu _++\mu _{}`$, where $`\mu _m`$ is the molecular chemical potential. A simple transformation of the field operators, $`\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^{}=\widehat{\psi }_\sigma \mathrm{exp}\left[(i/\mathrm{})^t\{ϵ_\sigma (\tau )+\mu _\sigma \}𝑑\tau \right]`$ and $`\widehat{\psi }_m^{}=\widehat{\psi }_m\mathrm{exp}\left[(i/\mathrm{})^t\{ϵ_+(\tau )+ϵ_{}(\tau )+\mu _m\}𝑑\tau \right]`$, illustrates that the dynamics does not depend on the fermion energy difference, $`ϵ_+ϵ_{}`$, but only on the molecular excitation energy $`ϵ=ϵ_m[ϵ_++ϵ_{}]`$. Indeed, the transformed operators satisfy

$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{h}_\sigma \widehat{\psi }_\sigma \sigma \alpha \widehat{\psi }_m\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^{},`$ (5)
$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_m`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{h}_m\widehat{\psi }_m+\alpha \widehat{\psi }_+\widehat{\psi }_{},`$ (6)
where we drop the primes and define $`\widehat{h}_\sigma =\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{2m}+V_\sigma \mu _\sigma \right]`$, $`\widehat{h}_m=\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{4m}+V_m+ϵ\mu _m\right]`$. As in Cooper-pairing , the annihilation of a fermion is accompanied by the creation of a fermion of opposite “spin” . Accordingly, the quasiparticle state of quantum number $`j`$ and spin $`\sigma `$, $`|j,\sigma `$, is a mixture of a $`\sigma `$ particle and a $`\sigma `$ hole. We characterize the fermion pairing field by the particle and hole amplitudes for bringing the many-body state $`|0`$ to the excited $`|j,\sigma `$– state: $`u_{j,\sigma }(𝐫,t)=0|\widehat{\psi }_\sigma (𝐫,t)|j,\sigma `$, $`v_{j,\sigma }(𝐫,t)=\sigma 0|\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^{}(𝐫,t)|j,\sigma `$. We obtain the zero temperature equations of motion by taking the excitation amplitudes of the fermion Heisenberg equations and the expectation value of the $`\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_m`$ equation. In the assumption of molecular condensate coherence, $`\widehat{\psi }_m\varphi _m`$, and $`0|\widehat{\psi }_m^{}\widehat{\psi }_\sigma |j,\sigma \varphi _m^{}u_{j,\sigma }`$ , this mean-field procedure gives Bogoliubov de-Gennes (BDG)-like equations for the $`u/v`$-parameters coupled to a Gross-Pitaevskii (GP)-like equation for $`\varphi _m`$:

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\left(\begin{array}{c}u_{j,\sigma }\\ v_{j,\sigma }\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\widehat{h}_\sigma & \alpha \varphi _m\\ \alpha \varphi _m^{}& \widehat{h}_\sigma \end{array}\right)(\begin{array}{c}u_{j,\sigma }\\ v_{j,\sigma }\end{array},),\sigma =\pm 1,`$ (13)
$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _m}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{h}_m\varphi _m+\alpha F_{+1},`$ (14)
where $`F_{+1}=\widehat{\psi }_{+1}\widehat{\psi }_1`$ $`=_j0|\widehat{\psi }_{+1}|j,+1j,+1|\widehat{\psi }_1|0=_ju_{j,+}v_{j,}^{}`$ represents the pairing field. The anticommutator relations satisfied by the $`\widehat{\psi }_\sigma `$-fields imply that $`F_{+1}=F_1`$, and that $`_j[u_{j,\sigma }(𝐫)u_{j,\sigma }^{}(𝐫^{})+v_{j,\sigma }(𝐫)v_{j,\sigma }^{}(𝐫^{})]=\delta (𝐫𝐫^{})`$.

In a homogeneous system, $`V_+=V_{}=0`$, contained in a macroscopic volume $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the excited many-body states have definite momentum, $`|j,\sigma |𝐤,\sigma `$ and the $`u_{j,\sigma },v_{j,\sigma }`$ mode functions are plane waves, $`u_{j,\sigma }(𝐫,t)=u_{k,\sigma }(t)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤𝐫)/\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. Fermion anticommutation implies $`|u_{k,\sigma }|^2+|v_{k,\sigma }|^2=1`$, and the $`\widehat{h}_\sigma `$-operators of (14) give real numbers, $`\widehat{h}_\sigma h_{k,\sigma }=[\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m\mu _\sigma ]`$. For $`N_+=N_{}=N`$, the ideal situation to achieve superfluidity, $`\mu _+=\mu _{}=\mu `$, the $`\sigma =\pm 1`$ equations are identical,

$`i\mathrm{}\dot{u}_k`$ $`=`$ $`h_ku_k\alpha \varphi _mv_k`$ (15)
$`i\mathrm{}\dot{v}_k`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha \varphi _m^{}u_kh_kv_k`$ (16)
$`i\mathrm{}\dot{\varphi }_m`$ $`=`$ $`(ϵ2\mu )\varphi _m+\alpha F_+,`$ (17)
where $`F_+=_𝐤u_kv_k^{}/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and we have dropped the spin subscripts. The single molecule energy, $`ϵ`$, can be varied experimentally by altering the magnetic field strength in the Feshbach resonance, or the laser detuning in the case of coherent photoassociation.

Statics In the static ($`\dot{\varphi }_m=0`$) off-resonant limit where $`ϵ`$ greatly exceeds all other single particle energies including the fermi-energy $`ϵ_F=\mathrm{}^2k_F^2/2m`$, where $`k_F`$ denotes the Fermi-momentum, $`k_F=(6\pi ^2n)^{1/3}`$ and $`n=N/\mathrm{\Omega }`$, few molecules are formed and $`\mu ϵ_F`$. We recover the BDG equation from (14) by substituting $`\varphi _m`$ from the GP-equation, $`\varphi _m=(\alpha F_{+1})/(ϵ2\mu )`$, in the $`u/v`$-equations which gives gives the usual Fermi-pairing equations  with an effective scattering length

$$a_{\mathrm{eff}}=\left(\frac{m}{4\pi \mathrm{}^2}\right)\frac{\alpha ^2}{ϵ2\mu },$$
(18)
similar to the effective scattering length of of the binary atom Feshbach resonance . Not surprisingly, the off-resonant critical temperature $`T_c`$ obtained in the finite-temperature mean-field treatment takes on the form of a negative scattering length $`T_c`$: $`T_cT_{c,eff}=0.6\mathrm{exp}(\pi /2k_F|a_{eff}|)`$. Near-resonance, $`T_c`$ follows from coupled integral equations , although our numerical results for a realistic system (a $`Rb_{86}`$–mixture at $`n2.\times 10^{13}cm^3`$, $`\alpha \sqrt{n}=ϵ_F`$) differed from $`T_{c,eff}`$ by less than a factor of 2 (giving near-resonant $`T_c`$’s $`10^7`$ K) .

The static $`u`$ and $`v`$–amplitudes in (17) evolve according to the excitation energies $`E(k)`$ of the $`|𝐤,\sigma `$–state, $`u_k(t)=u_k\mathrm{exp}[iE(k)t/\mathrm{}]`$, $`v_k(t)=v_k\mathrm{exp}[iE(k)t/\mathrm{}]`$. The resulting $`u/v`$–equations have a non-trivial solution if

$$E(k)=\sqrt{\left(\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m\mu \right)^2+|\alpha \varphi _m|^2},$$
(19)
giving a superconductor-like dispersion with gap $`|\alpha \varphi _m|`$. Since the gap measures the success of the fermion pairing in lowering the overall energy, Eq. (19) illustrates that it is the mutual coherence of the Bose and Fermi fields that pairs the fermions, i.e. the boson and fermion fields maintain macroscopic coherence by ‘feeding off’ each other.

The static $`u`$ and $`v`$ ‘coherence’ factors that follow from (17), $`u_k^2=[1+h_k/E(k)]/2`$ and $`v_k^2=[1h_k/E(k)]/2`$, characterize the fermion pairing physics. The occupation number of the single fermion $`𝐤`$-state is given by $`v_k^2`$ and the Fourier-transform of $`g(k)=v_k/u_k`$ gives the wavefunction $`\phi (𝐫=𝐫_i𝐫_j)`$ of the Cooper pairs. The range of the pair wavefunction, $`\phi `$, $`L_c^2=d^3rr^2\phi (𝐫)/d^3r\phi (𝐫)`$, follows from the long wavelength behavior of $`g(k)g(0)[1(kL_c)^2/6]`$, $`k0`$. We find that $`\mathrm{}^2/(2mL_c^2)=E(k=0)/6=\sqrt{4\mu ^2+(\alpha \varphi _m)^2}/6`$ and $`L_c`$ is largest in the off-resonant limit where $`\mu ϵ_F`$ and $`|\alpha \varphi _m|<<ϵ_F`$, so that $`L_c\sqrt{3}k_F^1`$. Typically , the local value of $`k_F^1`$ exceeds the length scale on which the density of a trapped degenerate fermion system varies so that the homogeneous results also apply to the trap system in the sense of a Thomas-Fermi description.

Provided $`|\alpha \varphi _m|<<\mu `$, we can approximate the $`F_+`$–integral analytically and the properly renormalized  GP-like equation yields $`\varphi _m8e^2(\mu /\alpha )\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi }{2k_F|a_{eff}|}\right)`$, where $`\mu ϵ_F`$. From the exponential dependence on $`(k_Fa_{eff})^1`$ (as compared to $`\varphi _mϵ^1`$ in the resonant BEC ) it follows that only close to resonance does a measurable molecular field appear, $`|a_{eff}|0.4k_F^1`$. This regime is accessible to Feshbach resonance experiments. In that case, the limitation in $`ϵ`$ ($`a_{eff}`$) corresponds to a magnetic field interval around the resonant value $`B_0`$, $`|\delta B|<\delta \overline{B}`$, where $`\delta B=BB_0`$. We determine the interval size $`\delta \overline{B}`$ from $`|a_{eff}|0.4k_F^1`$ with  $`a_{eff}=a_s(\mathrm{\Delta }/\delta B)`$, where $`a_s`$ denotes the ordinary scattering length of the unlike fermion interaction and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ represents the measured magnetic field ‘width’: $`\delta \overline{B}=2.5\times (|a_0|k_F)|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$. To obtain representative numbers, we consider the $`Na_{23}`$ resonances observed by Stenger et al.  for which $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|=0.1G,1.G`$ and $`4G`$. Taking $`n=10^{12}cm^3`$,  and $`a_s=3.3nm`$ (the $`Na`$ triplet scattering length), we find $`\delta \overline{B}=0.03|\mathrm{\Delta }|=3mG,30mG,0.12G`$ exceeding current experimental magnetic field resolution (typically better than $`1mG`$). Also, within $`|\delta B|\delta \overline{B}`$, $`|a_{eff}|=|\mathrm{\Delta }/\delta B|a_s>30.a_s`$, which justifies our approximation of neglecting the $`a_s`$–interactions in (4). As the system is tuned closer to resonance, $`\varphi _m`$ and $`\mu `$ need to be solved self-consistently from (17) and the condition of particle conservation: $`N=\mathrm{\Omega }|\varphi _m|^2+_kv_k^2`$.

Dynamics As mutually coherent superfluids, the atom-molecule system responds to a sudden change of $`\alpha `$ or $`ϵ`$ by means of macroscopically coherent Josephson-like atomic and molecular population oscillations. In the figure, we show the molecular condensate population as $`ϵ`$ varies in time : at t=$`\mathrm{}/ϵ_F`$, $`ϵ`$ was suddenly raised from $`8ϵ_F`$ to $`14ϵ_F`$, and returned to its initial value at $`t=1.2\mathrm{}/ϵ_F`$. The time-unit $`\mathrm{}/ϵ_F=2.1A(n/n_0)^{2/3}\mu \mathrm{sec}`$, where $`A`$ is the atomic number and $`n_0`$ denotes a reference density of realistic value, $`n_0=10^{12}cm^3`$, indicates time scales that are readily accessible to the available technology. Note that a population oscillation in a binary atom collision would start when the atoms meet, which happens ‘randomly’ in a classical description of the atomic center-of-mass motion, thereby washing out any such oscillations in a many-body average. Thus, macroscopically coherent atom-molecule oscillations constitute a genuine manifestation of mutually coherent long-range order.

Given the problems encountered in the evaporative cooling of neutral fermion atoms , it may be of future interest to use coherent molecule formation in an alternative cooling scheme, such as the example we now discuss. (i) We photoassociate finite temperature atoms to molecules. (ii) We switch off the lasers and cool the bosonic molecules evaporatively to BEC. (iii) We turn the lasers on and sweep the detuning (which plays the role of $`ϵ`$) of the resulting fermi/bose superfluid from negative to positive values. If we can neglect spontaneous photon emission and other heating and loss-processes, this procedure results in an ultra-cold fermi/bose system of mostly fermionic atoms. (iv) We switch off the lasers.

In conclusion, we have pointed out that the coherent atom-molecule interactions available in present-day atom cooling experiments suggest the exciting prospect of creating a cold atom superfluid of novel structure, consisting of mutually coherent field components of different spin statistics. Although this novel type of fermion pairing mechanism was previously proposed as a phenomenological model for high $`T_c`$ superconductivity, the atom trap systems could provide the first realization. In addition to the advantage of being described by a well-defined, first principles Hamiltonian, we show that the added flexibility of controlling the detuning can be used to diagnose this new long-range coherence.

Figure

Figure 1 Plot showing the fraction of atoms in the molecular condensate (i.e. $`|\varphi _m|^2/n`$), as the fermi/bose system responds to a sudden increase at $`t=1`$ of the molecule energy from its initial value, $`ϵ=8ϵ_F`$ to $`ϵ=14ϵ_F`$. At $`t=1.2`$, $`ϵ`$ was returned to its initial value. The energy unit, $`ϵ_F`$, is the fermi energy of the atoms and the unit of time on the horizontal axis is equal to $`\mathrm{}/ϵ_F`$. We choose a realistic atom-molecule coupling constant for which $`\alpha \sqrt{n}=ϵ_F`$.