Enhanced paraconductivity-like fluctuations in the radio frequency spectra of ultracold Fermi atoms

Ultracold Fermi atoms allow the realization of the crossover from Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductivity to Bose- Einstein condensation (BEC), by varying with continuity the attraction between fermions of different species. In this context, radio frequency (RF) spectroscopy provides a microscopic probe to infer the nature of fermionic pairing. In the strongly-interacting regime, this pairing affects a wide temperature range comprising the critical temperature T_c, in analogy to the pseudogap physics for high-temperature superconductors. By including what are known in superconductors as "paraconductivity" fluctuations, here we calculate the RF spectra above T_c for fermions with balanced populations and compare them with available experimental data, thus revealing that the role of these fluctuations is considerably enhanced with respect to superconductors. In addition, we extract from the spectra an energy scale associated with pairing and relate it to a universal quantity recently introduced for Fermi gases.