Superfluidity of fermionic pairs in a harmonic trap. Comparative studies: Local Density Approximation and Bogoliubov-de Gennes solutions

Experiments with ultracold gases on the lattice give the opportunity to realize superfluid fermionic mixtures in a trapping potential. The external trap modifies the chemical potential locally. Moreover, this trap also introduces non-homogeneity in the superconducting order parameter. There are, among other approaches, two methods which can be used to describe the system of two-component mixtures loaded into an optical lattice: the Local Density Approximation (LDA) and the self-consistent Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations. Here, we compare results obtained within these two methods. We conclude that the results can be distinguishable only in the case of a small value of the pairing interaction.