The dispersions, weights, and widths of the peaks of the single-particle spectral function in the presence of pair correlations, for a Fermi gas with either attractive $or$ repulsive short-range inter-particle interaction, are determined in the normal phase over a wide range of wave vectors, with a twofold purpose. The first one is to determine how these dispersions identify both an energy scale known as the pseudogap near the Fermi wave vector as well as an additional energy scale related to the contact $C$ at large wave vectors. The second one is to differentiate the behaviors of the repulsive gas from the attractive one in terms of crossing versus avoided crossing of the dispersions near the Fermi wave vector. An analogy will also be drawn between the occurrence of the pseudogap physics in a Fermi gas subject to pair fluctuations and the persistence of local spin waves in the normal phase of magnetic materials.

• Received 28 June 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.024517