Degeneracies in trapped two-component Fermi gases

Abstract

We report on previously unobserved inter-system degeneracies in two-component equal-mass Fermi gases with interspecies zero-range interactions under isotropic harmonic confinement. Over the past 10 years, two-component Fermi gases consisting of $n_1$ spin-up and $n_2$ spin-down atoms with interspecies zero-range interactions have become a paradigm for modeling condensed matter systems, nuclear matter and neutron matter. We show that the eigen energies of the $(n_1+1,n_2-1)$ system are degenerate with the eigen energies of the $(n_1,n_2)$ system for any s-wave scattering length $a_s$, including infinitely large, positive and negative $a_s$. The existence of the inter-system degeneracies is demonstrated explicitly for few-body systems with $n_1+n_2=4, 5$ and 6. The degeneracies and associated symmetries are explained within a group theoretical framework.