Phonon contribution to the shear viscosity of a superfluid Fermi gas in the unitarity limit (Q2442336)

The authors of this article study the contribution of phonons to \(\eta/s\) of a cold Fermi gas at the unitarity limit. Here, \(\eta\) and \(s\) denote the shear viscosity and entropy, respectively, and the limit as the two-body scattering length goes to infinity is called the unitarity limit. They show that the observed experimental values of \(\eta/s\) at very low temperatures can be reproduced assuming that phonons through what is called the Beliaev processes give the leading contribution to the shear viscosity \(\eta\). Moreover, they point out that \(\eta/s\) correlates with the size of the optical trap and that it decreases as the temperature decreases. On the other hand, at higher temperatures, they show that the observed experimental values of \(\eta/s\) can be also reproduced assuming an anomalous dispersion law for phonons.