Critical temperature and Ginzburg-Landau equation for a trapped Fermi gas

Abstract

We discuss a superfluid phase transition in a trapped neutral-atom Fermi gas. We consider the case where the critical temperature greatly exceeds the spacing between the trap levels and derive the corresponding Ginzburg-Landau equation. The latter turns out to be analogous to the equation for the condensate wave function in a trapped Bose gas. The analysis of its solution provides us with the value of the critical temperature $T_{c}$ and with the spatial and temperature dependence of the order parameter in the vicinity of the phase transition point.