Pairing in 4-component fermion systems: The bulk limit of SU(4)-symmetric Hamiltonians

Fermion systems with more than two components can exhibit pairing condensates of a much more complex structure than the well-known single BCS condensate of spin-up and spin-down fermions. In the framework of the exactly solvable SO(8) Richardson-Gaudin (RG) model with SU(4)-symmetric Hamiltonians, we show that the BCS approximation remains valid in the thermodynamic limit of large systems for describing the ground-state energy and the canonical and quasiparticle excitation gaps. Correlations beyond BCS pairing give rise to a spectrum of collective excitations, but these do not affect the bulk energy and quasiparticle gaps.