Transition to Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov phases in three dimensions: A quasiclassical investigation at low temperature with Fourier expansion

We investigate, in three spatial dimensions, the transition from the normal state to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluid phases. We make use of a Fourier expansion for the order parameter and the Green's functions to handle the quasiclassical equations in the vicinity of the transition. We show that, below the tricritical point, the transition is always first order. We find that, at the transition, the higher Fourier components in the order parameter are always essentially negligible. Below the tricritical point we have the already known result that the order parameter has a spatial dependence which is essentially cos(q center dot r). However, when the temperature is lowered the order parameter switches to a sum of two cosines, with equal weights and wave vectors with the same length, but orthogonal directions. Finally, by further lowering the temperature, and down to T=0, one finds another transition toward an order parameter that is the sum of three cosines with, again, equal weights and orthogonal directions. Hence the structure of the order parameter gets more complex as the temperature is lowered. On the other hand, the resulting critical temperatures are found to be only slightly higher than the ones corresponding to the standard second-order FFLO transition. We apply our results to the specific case of ultracold Fermi gases and show that the differences in atomic populations of the two hyperfine states involved in the BCS condensation display sizeable variations when one goes from the normal state to the superfluid FFLO phases, or from one FFLO phase to another. Experimentally this should allow us to clearly identify the various phase transitions.