Phase-separated ferromagnetism in a spin-imbalanced system of Fermi atoms loaded in an optical ladder: A density-matrix renormalization-group study

We consider repulsively interacting, cold fermionic atoms loaded on an optical ladder lattice in a trapping potential. The density-matrix renormalization-group method is used to numerically calculate the ground state for systematically varied values of interaction U and spin imbalance p in the Hubbard model on the ladder. The system exhibits rich structures, where a fully spin-polarized phase, spatially separated from other domains in the trapping potential, appears for large enough U and p. The phase-separated ferromagnetism can be captured as a real-space image of the energy gap between the ferromagnetic and other states arising from the combined effect of the Nagaoka ferromagnetism extended to the ladder and the density dependence of the energy separation between competing states. We also predict how to maximize the ferromagnetic region.