arXiv:1002.3685 · Physical Review A
Color-charge separation in trapped SU( 3 ) fermionic atoms
Tobias Ulbricht, Rafael A. Molina, Ronny Thomale, Peter Schmitteckert
Abstract
Cold fermionic atoms with three different hyperfine states with SU($3$) symmetry confined in one-dimensional optical lattices show color-charge separation, generalizing the conventional spin-charge separation for interacting SU($2$) fermions in one dimension. Through time-dependent density-matrix renormalization-group simulations, we explore the features of this phenomenon for a generalized SU($3$) Hubbard Hamiltonian. In our numerical simulations of finite-size systems, we observe different velocities of the charge and color degrees of freedom when a Gaussian wave packet or a charge (color) density response to a local perturbation is evolved. The differences between attractive and repulsive interactions are explored and we note that neither a small anisotropy of the interaction, breaking the SU($3$) symmetry, nor the filling impedes the basic observation of these effects.