In this paper the properties of dark solitons in superfluid Fermi gases with spin imbalance are studied by means of a recently developed effective field theory [Eur. Phys. J. B 88, 122 (2015)] suitable to describe the BEC-BCS crossover in ultracold gases in an extended range of temperatures as compared to the usual Ginzburg–Landau treatments. The spatial profiles for the total density and for the density of the excess-spin component, and the changes of their properties across the BEC-BCS crossover are examined in different conditions of temperature and imbalance. The presence of population imbalance is shown to strongly affect the structure of the soliton excitation by filling its core with unpaired atoms. This in turn influences the dynamical properties of the soliton since the additional particles in the core have to be dragged along thus altering the effective mass.

• Received 11 June 2015
• Revised 22 October 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.013614