Universal corrections to the superfluid gap in a cold Fermi gas

A framework for computing the superfluid gap in an effective field theory (EFT) of fermions interacting via momentum independent contact forces is developed. The leading universal corrections in the EFT are one-loop in-medium effects at the Fermi surface, and reproduce the well-known Gor’kov-Melik-Barkhudarov result. The complete subleading universal corrections are presented here, and include one-loop effects away from the Fermi surface, two-loop in-medium effects, as well as modifications to the fermion propagator. Together, these effects are found to reduce the gap at low densities. Applications to neutron superfluidity in neutron stars are discussed.

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under grant numbers 200021_192137 and PCEFP2_203335, by the U. S. Department of Energy grant DE-FG02-97ER-41014 (UW Nuclear Theory) and by the U. S. Department of Energy grant DE-SC0020970, (InQubator for Quantum Simulation).