Strongly resonant p-wave superfluids

Abstract

We study theoretically a dilute gas of identical fermions interacting via a p-wave resonance. We show that, depending on the microscopic physics, there are two distinct regimes of p-wave resonant superfluids, which we term "weak" and "strong." Although expected naively to form a paired superfluid, a strongly resonant p-wave superfluid is in fact unstable toward the formation of a gas of fermionic trimers. We examine this instability and estimate the lifetime of the p-wave molecules due to the collisional relaxation into trimers. We discuss consequences for the experimental achievement of p-wave superfluids in both weakly and strongly resonant regimes.