We investigate two-component ultracold fermionic atoms with attractive interactions trapped in a two-dimensional optical lattice at zero temperature. By introducing a superfluid trial state with spatially modulated order parameters, we perform the variational Monte Carlo simulations to treat the correlation effects beyond mean-field treatments. It is shown that there appears a strong tendency to the formation of a density wave state in the regions with specific values of local atom density. We then analyze two kinds of perturbations to the superfluid state and show that a coexisting state of superfluid and density wave ordering, a sort of supersolid state, can be stabilized. It is discussed how the trap potential and the resulting spatial modulation of the superfluid state affect the momentum distributions and the noise correlation functions.

• Received 3 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.81.063627