arXiv:1405.2565 · Scientific Reports

Spontaneous magnetization and anomalous Hall effect in an emergent Dice lattice

Omjyoti Dutta, Anna Przysiężna, Jakub Zakrzewski

Published Jun 9, 2015• 14 citations

Abstract

Ultracold atoms in optical lattices serve as a tool to model different physical phenomena appearing originally in condensed matter. To study magnetic phenomena one needs to engineer synthetic fields as atoms are neutral. Appropriately shaped optical potentials force atoms to mimic charged particles moving in a given field. We present the realization of artificial gauge fields for the observation of anomalous Hall effect. Two species of attractively interacting ultracold fermions are considered to be trapped in a shaken two dimensional triangular lattice. A combination of interaction induced tunneling and shaking can result in an emergent Dice lattice. In such a lattice the staggered synthetic magnetic flux appears and it can be controlled with external parameters. The obtained synthetic fields are non-Abelian. Depending on the tuning of the staggered flux we can obtain either anomalous Hall effect or its quantized version. Our results are reminiscent of Anomalous Hall conductivity in spin-orbit coupled ferromagnets.

DOI: 10.1038/srep11060

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Ultracold gases are remarkably versatile and controllable systems with untapped potential to emulate a variety of quantum phenomena [1]. Atoms are, however, electrically neutral and therefore it is highly desirable to make them behave as charged particles. This capability has recently been demonstrated in a series of recent experiments [2–4]. Although many challenges remain ahead, atoms exposed to synthetic gauge field offer great opportunities for the realization of new classes of quantum materials with custom-designed properties, and with unforeseen applications. The first implementation of an effective magnetic field was accomplished by rotating an atomic cloud [5]. In the rotating frame of reference, an atom experiences the Coriolis force that emulates the Lorentz force experienced by a charged particle in a uniform magnetic field. Large vortex lattices have been created in this way, however, so far the strength of the effective magnetic field achieved by rotation is too weak to lead to new physics. An alternative approach invokes the vector potential, A, that induces a geometric phase as a charged particle moves around a closed loop. This notion of geometric phase can be adapted to a neutral atom that slowly moves in the presence of laser fields. If the lasers are chosen to ‘dress’ the internal atomic levels, so that the dressed eigenstates become position dependent, the center of mass adiabatically evolves according the operator p-A, instead of just p = −iℏ∇. The atom thus effectively moves as a charged particle in a magnetic field B = ∇ × A (see Fig. 1a). Exploiting this idea series of experiments have implemented artificial magnetic and electric fields [2–4]. The idea has also been implemented in the presence of a superimposed periodic optical lattice potential (see Fig. 1b). In this case, the length scale imposed by the lattice competes with the one associated with the magnetic field and can lead to frustration, manifested as an energy spectrum with fractal characteristics [2,3]. Light induced synthetic gauge fields: (a) A gas of neural atoms (green oval) can behave as a gas of charged particles when it is illuminated by a pair of laser beams (red arrows) that imparts momentum to the atoms and couples their internal (.|↑.〉, .|↓.〉) and motional degrees of freedom. The Raman beams that induce transitions between internal states also transfer two units of their linear momentum 2kL. This leads to the formation of dressed states (superpositions of states with different internal levels and center of mass momenta) which experience a modified kinetic energy, with an effective vector potential. If the effective vector potential has nonzero curl, the atoms move as charged particles in a magnetic field. (b) In the presence of an optical lattice potential, Raman beams can also induce an effective vector potential. In this case, the lattice is engineered so that along one direction atoms can tunnel between adjacent lattice sites (Jlight) only by absorbing and emitting photons from the beams. The imparted momentum from the lasers produces path-dependent phases that resemble the magnetic flux accumulated by a charged particle as it moves in a closed loop. The flux accumulated by the atoms when they move around a single unit cell, ϕ, can be significant (equivalent to the one generated by a real magnetic field of thousands tesla in an electronic system) and induce a fractal energy spectrum. Generalizations to emulate non-Abelian gauge potentials, associated in many cases to spin-orbit coupling can emerge when the geometric phase is replaced by a matrix acting on the internal Hilbert space [2–5]. This happens if there is a manifold of degenerate dressed states, such that even for arbitrarily slow motion, after traveling around a contour the particle ends up in a different internal state. Although various proposals for generating non-Abelian potentials exist, they remain to be implemented. On the other hand, Abelian spin-orbit coupling, arising from the momentum kicks imparted on the atom by the laser photons that drive internal transitions, has been realized in several laboratories using different laser configurations in alkali-metal (one outer electron) and alkaline-earth (two outer electrons) atoms [2–5]. There is a great vista ahead. For example, the inclusion of collisions or dipolar interactions will open a window to engineer fractional Hall liquids, unconventional superfluids and interacting topological phases. The creation of dynamical gauge fields important in many areas of physics such as quantum chromodynamics is also an open direction. The time is just ripe for investigating rich and unexplored physics with synthetic gauge fields for ultracold matter.

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Non-Abelian gauge fields

Fabrice Gerbier, Nathan Goldman, Maciej Lewenstein +1 more

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Although such a system is an insulator in the bulk, it supports topologically robust edge excitations which carry the Hall current. The robustness of these chiral excitations against backscattering explains the universality of the quantum Hall effect. Another interesting and related effect, which arises from the interplay between strong magnetic field and lattice potentials, is the famous Hofstadter butterfly: the energy spectrum of a single particle moving on a lattice and subjected to a strong magnetic field displays a beautiful fractal structure as a function of the magnetic flux penetrating each elementary plaquette of the lattice. When the effects of interparticle interactions become dominant, two-dimensional gases of electrons exhibit even more exotic behaviour leading to the fractional quantum Hall effect. In certain conditions such a strongly interacting electron gas may form a highly correlated state of matter, the prototypical example being the celebrated Laughlin quantum liquid. Even more fascinating is the behaviour of bulk excitations (quasi-hole and quasi-particles): they are neither fermionic nor bosonic, but rather behave as anyons with fractional statistics intermediate between the two. Moreover, for some specific filling factors (ratio between the electronic density and the flux density), these anyons are proven to have an internal structure (several components) and non-Abelian braiding properties. Many of the above statements concern theoretical predictions—they have never been observed in condensed matter systems. For instance, the fractional values of the Hall conductance is seen as a direct consequence of the fractional statistics, but to date direct observation of anyons has not been possible in two-dimensional semiconductors. 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Again, while many kinds of topological insulators have been realized in condensed matter systems, a controlled way of creating them in AMO systems and studying quantum phase transitions between various kinds of them is obviously very appealing and challenging. The various systems listed so far correspond to static gauge fields, which are externally imposed by the experimentalists. Even more fascinating is the possibility of generating synthetically dynamical gauge fields, i.e. gauge fields that evolve in time according to an interacting gauge theory, e.g., a full lattice gauge theory (LGT). These dynamical gauge fields can also couple to matter fields, allowing the quantum simulation of such complex systems (notoriously hard to simulate using 'traditional' computers), which are particularly relevant for modern high-energy physics. So far, most of the theoretical proposals concern the simulation of Abelian gauge theories, however, several groups have recently proposed extensions to the non-Abelian scenarios. The scope of the present focused issue of Journal of Physics B is to cover all of these developments, with particular emphasis on the non-Abelian gauge fields. The 14 papers in this issue include contributions from the leading theory groups working in this field; we believe that this collection will provide the reference set for quantum simulations of gauge fields. Although the special issue contains exclusively theoretical proposals and studies, it should be stressed that the progress in experimental studies of artificial Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields in recent years has been simply spectacular. Multiple leading groups are working on this subject and have already obtained a lot of seminal results. The papers in the special issue are ordered according to the date of acceptance. The issue opens with a review article by Zhou et al [1] on unconventional states of bosons with synthetic spin–orbit coupling. Next, the paper by Maldonado-Mundo et al [2] studies ultracold Fermi gases with artificial Rashba spin–orbit coupling in a 2D gas. Anderson and Charles [3], in contrast, discuss a three-dimensional spin–orbit coupling in a trap. Orth et al [4] investigate correlated topological phases and exotic magnetism with ultracold fermions, again in the presence of artificial gauge fields. The paper of Nascimbène [5] does not address the synthetic gauge fields directly, but describes an experimental proposal for realizing one-dimensional topological superfluids with ultracold atomic gases; obviously, this problem is well situated in the general and growing field of topological superfluids, in particular those realized in the presence of non-Abelian gauge fields/spin–orbit coupling. Graß et al [6] consider in their paper fractional quantum Hall states of a Bose gas with spin–orbit coupling induced by a laser. Particular attention is drawn here to the possibility of realizing states with non-Abelian anyonic excitations. Zheng et al [7] study properties of Bose gases with Raman-induced spin–orbit coupling. Kiffner et al [8] in their paper touch on another kind of system, namely ultracold Rydberg atoms. In particular they study the generation of Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields in dipole–dipole interacting Rydberg atoms. The behaviour of fermions in synthetic non-Abelian gauge potentials is discussed by Shenoy and Vyasanakere [9]. The paper starts with the study of Rashbon condensates (i.e. Bose condensates in the presence of Rashba coupling) and also introduces novel kinds of exotic Hamiltonians. Goldman et al [10] propose a concrete setup for realizing arbitrary non-Abelian gauge potentials in optical square lattices; they discuss how such synthetic gauge fields can be exploited to generate Chern insulators. Zygelman [11], similarly as Kiffner et al [8], discusses in his paper non-Abelian gauge fields in Rydberg systems. Marchukov et al [12] return to the subject of spin–orbit coupling, and investigate spectral gaps of spin–orbit coupled particles in the realistic situations of deformed traps. The last two papers, in contrast, are devoted to different subjects. Edmonds et al [13] consider a 'dynamical' density-dependent gauge potential, and study the Josephson effect in a Bose–Einstein condensate subject to such a potential. Last, but not least, Mazzucchi et al [14] study the properties of semimetal-superfluid quantum phase transitions in 3D lattices with Dirac points. References [1] Zhou X, Li Y, Cai Z and Wu C 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134001 [2] Maldonado-Mundo D, Öhberg P and Valiente M 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134002 [3] Anderson B M and Clark C W 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134003 [4] Orth P P, Cocks D, Rachel S, Buchhold M, Le Hur K and Hofstetter W 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134004 [5] Nascimbène S 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134005 [6] Graß T, Juliá-Díaz B, Burrello M and Lewenstein M 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134006 [7] Zheng W, Yu Z-Q, Cui X and Zhai H 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134007 [8] Kiffner M, Li W and Jaksch D 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134008 [9] Shenoy V B and Vyasanakere J P 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134009 [10] Goldman N, Gerbier F and Lewenstein M 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134010 [11] Zygelman B 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134011 [12] Marchukov O V, Volosniev A G, Fedorov D V, Jensen A S and Zinner N T 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134012 [13] Edmonds M J, Valiente M and Öhberg P 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134013 [14] Mazzucchi G, Lepori L and Trombettoni A 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 134014

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