d-wave Superfluid with Gapless Edges in a Cold Atom Trap

We consider a strongly repulsive fermionic gas in a two-dimensional optical lattice confined by a harmonic trapping potential. To address the strongly repulsive regime, we consider the $t-J$ Hamiltonian. The presence of the harmonic trapping potential enables the stabilization of coexisting and competing phases. In particular, at low temperatures, this allows the realization of a d-wave superfluid region surrounded by purely (gapless) normal edges. Solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations and comparing with the local density approximation, we show that the proximity to the Mott insulator is revealed by a downturn of the Fermi liquid order parameter at the center of the trap where the d-wave gap has a maximum. The density profile evolves linearly with distance.

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