Eur. Phys. J. D (2015) 69: 73
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2015-50682-x

Regular Article

Repulsively interacting fermions in a two-dimensional deformed trap with spin-orbit coupling

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

^a e-mail: zinner@phys.au.dk

Received: 15 September 2014
Received in final form: 18 December 2014
Published online: 17 March 2015

Abstract

We investigate a two-dimensional system of fermions with two values of the internal (spin) degree of freedom. It is confined by a deformed harmonic trap and subject to a Zeeman field, Rashba or Dresselhaus one-body spin-orbit couplings and two-body short range repulsion. We obtain self-consistent mean-field N-body solutions as functions of the interaction parameters. Single-particle spectra and total energies are computed and compared to the results without interaction. We perform a statistical analysis for the distributions of nearest neighbor energy level spacings and show that quantum signatures of chaos are seen in certain parameters regimes. Furthermore, the effects of two-body repulsion on the nearest neighbor distributions are investigated. This repulsion can either promote or destroy the signatures of potential chaotic behavior depending on relative strengths of parameters. Our findings support the suggestion that cold atoms may be used to study quantum chaos both in the presence and absence of interactions.