Einstein-de Haas Effect in a Dipolar Fermi Gas

Abstract

We show that an analogue to the classical Einstein-de Haas effect can appear in ultracold dipolar Fermi gases. The anisotropic nature of dipole-dipole interactions can lead to a transfer of magnetization into orbital angular momentum. Remarkably, distinct from a Bose-Einstein condensate, this transfer is accompanied by twisting motion, where individual spin components rotate in opposite directions with larger orbital angular momenta than the full system, possibly leading to easier experimental observation of the effect. This feature is induced by the deformation of the Fermi surface and the direction of the twisting motion can be controlled by an s-wave scattering length or external magnetic field, possibly providing a method of measuring scattering lengths of strongly dipolar atomic species.