Collective mode evidence of high-spin bosonization in a trapped one-dimensional atomic Fermi gas with tunable spin

We calculate the frequency of collective modes of a one-dimensional repulsively interacting Fermi gas with high-spin symmetry confined in harmonic traps at zero temperature. This is a system realizable with fermionic alkaline-earth-metal atoms such as Yb-173, which displays an exact SU(kappa) spin symmetry with kappa >= 2 and behaves like a spinless interacting Bose gas in the limit of infinite spin components kappa --> infinity, namely high-spin bosonization. We solve the homogeneous equation of state of the high-spin Fermi system by using Bethe ansatz technique and obtain the density distribution in harmonic traps based on local density approximation. The frequency of collective modes is calculated by exactly solving the zero-temperature hydrodynamic equation. In the limit of large number of spin-components, we show that the mode frequency of the system approaches that of a one-dimensional spinless interacting Bose gas, as a result of high-spin bosonization. Our prediction of collective modes is in excellent agreement with a very recent measurement for a Fermi gas of Yb-173 atoms with tunable spin confined in a two-dimensional tight optical lattice. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.