Shock waves in colliding Fermi gases at finite temperature

Abstract

We study the formation and the dynamics of a shock wave originating from the collision between two ultracold clouds of strongly interacting fermions as observed at a lower temperature in an experiment by Joseph et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 150401 (2011)]. We use the Boltzmann equation within the test-particle method to describe the evolution of the system in the normal phase. We also show a direct comparison with the hydrodynamic approach and insist on the necessity of including a shear viscosity and a thermal conductivity term in the equations to prevent unphysical behavior from taking place.

8 pages, 5 figures; v2: discussion and references added