Abstract

The recent success of atomic Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) experiments¹ has opened up new possibilities to probe statistical effects of trapped atoms. While most work so far has focused on bosonic atoms, not much attention has been paid to statistical signatures of fermions.² A distinctive feature of a degenerate Fermi system is the so-called Fermi-edge singularity which appears as a consequence of interactions and has profound effects on transport and optical properties of the system. We analyze a quasi one-dimensional trap coupled to a single excited state via resonant dipoledipole interactions.^3,4 The absorption spectrum of the trap at different temperatures is calculated and we find that due to interactions a distinct peak appears when the trap population is degenerate.

© 1998 Optical Society of America