Quantum droplets in a resonant Bose-Fermi mixture

Abstract

We study the canonical problem of a Fermi gas interacting with a weakly repulsive Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature. To explore the quantum phases across the full range of boson-fermion interactions, we construct a versatile variational ansatz that incorporates pair correlations and correctly captures the different polaron limits. Remarkably, we find that self-bound quantum droplets can exist in the strongly interacting regime, preempting the formation of boson-fermion dimers, when the Fermi pressure is balanced by the resonant boson-fermion attraction. This scenario can be achieved in experimentally available Bose-Fermi mixtures for a range of boson-fermion mass ratios in the vicinity of equal masses. We furthermore show that a larger fermion density instead yields phase separation between a Bose-Fermi mixture and excess fermions, as well as behavior reminiscent of a liquid-gas critical point. Our results suggest that first-order quantum phase transitions play a crucial role in the phase diagram of Bose-Fermi mixtures.