Mercredi 31 octobre 2012 à 10h15
Salle 234, Ecole de Physique

Probing thermoelectric transport with cold atoms trap

Charles Grenier, Ecole Polytechnique, France

Using the setup recently realized in the ETH group, we make a proposal for revealing thermoelectric effects in the transport properties of ultracold fermionic atoms. This setup consists in two reservoirs connected by a conducting channel. We present a theoretical analysis of the expected effects, and emphasize that an intrinsic thermoelectric effect due to the finite dilatation coefficient of the gas in the reservoirs arises in the context of atomic gases. This effect combines with the thermoelectric properties of the conduction channel to give rise to the total off-diagonal transport properties of the system. Finally, we propose an experimental protocol which directly probes the thermoelectric response and off-diagonal transport coefficients. The expected magnitude of the effects should make it possible to observe them in currently available experimental setups.