Number-parity effect for confined fermions in one dimension

Journal article

For $N$ spin-polarized fermions in a $1$-dimensional trap with strong attractive interactions an odd-even effect is found. The entanglement spectrum of the $1$-particle reduced density matrix of the system's ground state differs qualitatively for $N$ odd and $N$ even. Since this effect does not occur for bosons it is the result of the competition between the attractive interaction and the repulsive nature of Pauli's exclusion principle. In contrast to the spectrum, the fermionic $1$-particle density and correlation function do not show any sensitivity on the number parity. This suggests that reduced density matrix functional theory for strong attractive interactions has a more subtle $N$-dependency than density functional theory.

Authors: Schilling, C; Schilling, R

• Publication status: Submitted
• Publisher: arXiv
• Publication date: 2015-08-20