Expansion of a mesoscopic Fermi system from a harmonic trap

Abstract

We study quantum dynamics of an atomic Fermi system with a finite number of particles, N, after it is released from a harmonic trapping potential. We consider two different initial states: The Fermi sea state and the paired state described by the projection of the grand-canonical BCS wave function to the subspace with a fixed number of particles. In the former case, we derive exact and simple analytic expressions for the dynamics of particle density and density-density correlation functions, taking into account the level quantization and possible anisotropy of the trap. In the latter case of a paired state, we obtain analytic expressions for the density and its correlators in the leading order with respect to the ratio of the trap frequency and the superconducting gap (the ratio assumed small). We discuss several dynamic features, such as time evolution of the peak due to pair correlations, which may be used to distinguish between the Fermi sea and the paired state.