Dipole polarizability of a trapped superfluid Fermi gas

The polarization produced by the relative displacement of the potentials trapping two spin species of a dilute Fermi gas with N-up arrow=N-down arrow is calculated at unitarity by assuming phase separation between the superfluid and a polarized phase at zero temperature. Because of the energy cost associated with pair breaking, the dipole polarizability is strongly quenched and exhibits important deviations from the ideal gas behavior even for nonlinear displacements of the order of the size of the atomic cloud. The behavior in the presence of different trapping frequencies (monopole polarization) for the two spin species is also discussed. Our results suggest new experimental perspectives to explore the quantum phases of interacting Fermi gases.