Introduction to FFLO phases and collective mode in the BEC-BCS crossover

Abstract

The main focus of this paper is a discussion of what might happen in a BCS superfluid when there is an imbalance between the two populations of fermionic particles forming Cooper pairs, having in mind the case of ultracold Fermi gases. In the last part the evolution in the BEC-BCS crossover of the collective mode arising in such a superfluid (with balanced atomic populations) is briefly considered.

20 pages, to be published in the Proceedings of the 2006 Enrico Fermi Summer School on "Ultracold Fermi gases", organized by M. Inguscio, W. Ketterle and C.Salomon (Varenna, Italy, June 2006)