Pair condensation of polarized fermions in the BCS-BEC crossover

We investigate a two-component Fermi gas with unequal spin populations along the BCS-BEC crossover. By using the extended BCS equations and the concept of off-diagonal-long-range-order we derive a formula for the condensate number of Cooper pairs as a function of energy gap, average chemical potential, imbalance chemical potential and temperature. Then we study the zero-temperature condensate fraction of Cooper pairs by varying interaction strength and polarization, finding a depletion of the condensate fraction by increasing the population imbalance. We also consider explicitly the presence of an external harmonic confinement and we study, within the local-density approximation, the phase separation between superfluid (SF) and normal phase regions of the polarized fermionic cloud. In particular, we calculate both condensate density profiles and total density profiles from the inner SF core to the normal region passing for the interface, where a finite jump in the density is a clear manifestation of this phase-separated regime. Finally, we compare our theoretical results with the available experimental data on the condensate fraction of polarized 6Li atoms (Zwierlein et al 2006 Science 311 492). These experimental data are in reasonable agreement with our predictions in a suitable range of polarizations, but only in the BCS side of the crossover up to unitarity.