Ground-state properties of fermionic mixtures with mass imbalance in optical lattices

Ground-state properties of fermionic mixtures confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice are studied numerically within the spinless Falicov-Kimball model with a harmonic trap. A number of remarkable results are found. i) At low particle filling the system exhibits phase separation with heavy atoms in the center of the trap and light atoms in the surrounding regions. ii) Insulating phases always coexist with metallic phases. iii) Atomic-density waves are observed in the insulating regions for all particle fillings near the half-filled lattice case. iv) The variance of the local density exhibits universal behavior (independent of the particle filling, the Coulomb interaction and the strength of a con. ning potential) over the whole region of the local density values. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2008