Two-flavor mixture of a few fermions of different mass in a one-dimensional harmonic trap

Abstract

A system of two species of fermions of different mass confined in a one-dimensional harmonic trap is studied with an exact diagonalization approach. It is shown independently on the number of particles that a mass difference between fermionic species induces a separation in the lighter flavor system. The mechanism of emerging of separated phases is explained phenomenologically and confirmed with the help of a direct inspection of the ground-state of the system. Finally, it is shown that the separation driven by a mass difference, in contrast to the separation induced by a difference of populations, is robust to the interactions with thermal environment.