Wigner function of noninteracting trapped fermions

Abstract: We study analytically the Wigner function

of

N

noninteracting fermions trapped in a smooth confining potential

in

d

dimensions. At zero temperature,

is constant over a finite support in the phase space

and vanishes outside. Near the edge of this support, we find a universal scaling behavior of

for large

N

. The associated scaling function is independent of the precise shape of the potential as well as the spatial dimension

d

. We further generalize our results to finite temperature

T > 0

. We show that there exists a low temperature regime

T s i m e_{N} / b

where

e_{N}

is an energy scale that depends on

N

and the confining potential

, where the Wigner function at the edge again takes a universal scaling form with a

b

-dependent scaling function. This temperature dependent scaling function is also independent of the potential as well as the dimension

d

. Our results generalize to any

d g e q 1

and

T g e q 0

the

d = 1

and

T = 0

results obtained by Bettelheim and Wiegman [Phys. Rev. B

, 085102 (2011)].

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