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arXiv:1504.05520

Introduction to the physics of artificial gauge fields

Jean Dalibard

Published Apr 21, 2015• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Simulating magnetic effects with cold gases of neutral atoms is a challenge. Since these atoms have no charge, one needs to create artificial gauge fields by taking advantage of the geometric phases that can result for instance from atom-light interaction. We review here some schemes that lead to the desired Hamiltonians, either in a bulk geometry or in a lattice configuration. We also detail the relations between some general concepts of magnetism, such as gauge invariance, Landau levels, topological bands, and the features that can be generated in cold atoms setups.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1504.05520

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When a neutral atom moves in a properly designed laser field, its center-of-mass motion may mimic the dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field, with the emergence of a Lorentz-like force. In this Colloquium the physical principles at the basis of this artificial (synthetic) magnetism are presented. The corresponding Aharonov-Bohm phase is related to the Berry's phase that emerges when the atom adiabatically follows one of the dressed states of the atom-laser interaction. Some manifestations of artificial magnetism for a cold quantum gas, in particular, in terms of vortex nucleation are discussed. The analysis is then generalized to the simulation of non-Abelian gauge potentials and some striking consequences are presented, such as the emergence of an effective spin-orbit coupling. Both the cases of bulk gases and discrete systems, where atoms are trapped in an optical lattice, are addressed.

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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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In 1996, Lloyd [1] showed that the dynamics of complex many-body quantum systems can be efficiently simulated by quantum computers, an idea first put forward by Manin [2] and further developed by Feynman [3]. Although the first quantum computers of a few qubits have been realised experimentally [4, 5], the advent of scalable quantum computers might take another few decades. An alternative tool in the context of simulation is a highly controllable quantum system able to mimic the dynamics of other complex quantum systems, known as an analog quantum simulator. Cold neutral atoms and trapped ions have been shown to be versatile quantum simulators [6, 7] thanks to their high flexibility, controllability, and scalability. They permit one to study a wide range of problems arising from atomic physics, relativistic quantum physics, or cosmology [8]. Since neutral atoms do not carry any net charge, the simulation of electric and magnetic condensed matter phenomena, such as the spin Hall effect, seems out of reach. To overcome this apparent difficulty, the idea has been proposed to create artificial electromagnetic potentials for neutral atoms based on atom-light interaction [9– 12]. These artificial potentials act on neutral atoms as real electromagnetic potentials act on charged particles. Many works on artificial gauge potentials induced by atom-light interactions adopt a single-particle approach [12]. The predicted potentials are then supposed to be valid for a system of weakly interacting atoms. So far, the consequences of atom-atom interactions on the generation of artificial gauge fields has little been studied. The aim of this work is to study the artificial gauge fields arising from the interaction of two Rydberg atoms driven by a common laser field [13]. In this situation, we show that the combined atom-atom and atom-field interactions give rise to nonuniform, artificial gauge potentials. We identify the mechanism responsible for the emergence of these gauge potentials. Analytical expressions for the latter indicate that the strongest artificial magnetic fields are reached in the regime intermediate between the dipole blockade regime and the regime in which the atoms are sufficiently far apart such that atom-light interaction dominates over atom-atom interactions. We discuss the differences and similarities of artificial gauge fields originating from resonant dipole-dipole [14] and van der Waals [15] interactions. We also give an estimation of experimentally attainable artificial magnetic fields resulting from this mechanism and we discuss their detection through the deflection of the atomic motion. [1] S. Lloyd, Science 273, 1073 (1996). [2] Yu. I. Manin, Computable and uncomputable, Sovetskoye Radio, Moscow, 1980. [3] R. P. Feynman, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 21, 467 (1982). [4] L. DiCarlo, J. M. Chow, J. M. Gambetta, Lev S. Bishop, B. R. Johnson, D. I. Schuster, J. Majer, A. Blais, L. Frunzio, S. M. Girvin, and R. J. Schoelkopf, Nature 460, 240 (2009). [5] N. Xu, J. Zhu, D. Lu, X. Zhou, X. Peng, and J. Du, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 130501 (2012). [6] I. Buluta and F. Nori, Science 326, 108 (2009). [7] I. Bloch, J. Dalibard and S. Nascimbéne, Nature Physics 8, 267 (2012). [8] R. Blatt and C. F. Roos, Nature Physics 8, 277 (2012). [9] G. Juzeliunas and P. Öhberg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 033602 (2004). [10] G. Juzeliunas, P. Öhberg, J. Ruseckas, and A. Klein, Phys. Rev. A 71, 053614 (2005). [11] G. Juzeliunas, J. Ruseckas, P. Öhberg, and M. Fleischhauer, Phys. Rev. A 73, 025602 (2006). [12] J. Dalibard, F. Gerbier, G. Juzeliu ̄nas, and P. Öhberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 1523 (2011). [13] A. Cesa and J. Martin, Phys. Rev. A 88,062703 (2013). [14] A. Gaëtan, Y. Miroshnychenko, T. Wilk, A. Chotia, M. Viteau, D. Comparat, P. Pillet, A. Browaeys, and P. Grangier, Nature Physics 5, 115 (2009). [15] L. Béguin, A. Vernier, R. Chicireanu, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 263201 (2013).

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This chapter discusses the physics of ultracold gases in ‘artificial’ magnetic fields. The analogy between electronic systems in the presence of external magnetic fields and ultracold gases in rotating traps leads to the familiar concepts of Landau Levels, the integer Hall effect, the fractional quantum Hall effect, and laughing states for neutral particles. The second part analyses the possibility of simulating Abelian and non Abelian Lattice Gauge theories with ultracold gases. Finally, the state-of-the-art in generating artificial magnetic fields for ultracold gases is reviewed.

Oxford University Press eBooks•Mar 8, 2012•0 citations
Simulating magnetic effects with cold gases of neutral atoms is a challenge. Since these atoms have no charge, one needs to create artificial gauge fields by taking advantage of the geometric phases that can result for instance from atom-light interaction. We review here some schemes that lead to the desired Hamiltonians, either in a bulk geometry or in a lattice configuration. We also detail the relations between some general concepts of magnetism, such as gauge invariance, Landau levels, topological bands, and the features that can be generated in cold atoms setups.
When a neutral atom moves in a properly designed laser field, its center-of-mass motion may mimic the dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field, with the emergence of a Lorentz-like force. In this Colloquium the physical principles at the basis of this artificial (synthetic) magnetism are presented. The corresponding Aharonov-Bohm phase is related to the Berry's phase that emerges when the atom adiabatically follows one of the dressed states of the atom-laser interaction. Some manifestations of artificial magnetism for a cold quantum gas, in particular, in terms of vortex nucleation are discussed. The analysis is then generalized to the simulation of non-Abelian gauge potentials and some striking consequences are presented, such as the emergence of an effective spin-orbit coupling. Both the cases of bulk gases and discrete systems, where atoms are trapped in an optical lattice, are addressed.
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.
Gauge fields are central in our modern understanding of physics at all scales. At the highest energy scales known, the microscopic universe is governed by particles interacting with each other through the exchange of gauge bosons. At the largest length scales, our Universe is ruled by gravity, whose gauge structure suggests the existence of a particle-the graviton-that mediates the gravitational force. At the mesoscopic scale, solid-state systems are subjected to gauge fields of different nature: materials can be immersed in external electromagnetic fields, but they can also feature emerging gauge fields in their low-energy description. In this review, we focus on another kind of gauge field: those engineered in systems of ultracold neutral atoms. In these setups, atoms are suitably coupled to laser fields that generate effective gauge potentials in their description. Neutral atoms 'feeling' laser-induced gauge potentials can potentially mimic the behavior of an electron gas subjected to a magnetic field, but also, the interaction of elementary particles with non-Abelian gauge fields. Here, we review different realized and proposed techniques for creating gauge potentials-both Abelian and non-Abelian-in atomic systems and discuss their implication in the context of quantum simulation. While most of these setups concern the realization of background and classical gauge potentials, we conclude with more exotic proposals where these synthetic fields might be made dynamical, in view of simulating interacting gauge theories with cold atoms.
The simulation of magnetic and electric quantum effects, which are encountered in the physics of condensed matter and concern the interaction of electrons with magnetic and electric fields, is an interesting problem, especially when working with atoms. The reason is that atoms are electrically neutral, so they cannot at first mimic the behavior of charged particles such as electrons. In this chapter, we review the ways in which we have been able to overcome this problem in systems of cold atoms interacting with laser beams. In the international literature, these simulated fields are known as artificial gauge fields, or simply artificial fields.
In 1996, Lloyd [1] showed that the dynamics of complex many-body quantum systems can be efficiently simulated by quantum computers, an idea first put forward by Manin [2] and further developed by Feynman [3]. Although the first quantum computers of a few qubits have been realised experimentally [4, 5], the advent of scalable quantum computers might take another few decades. An alternative tool in the context of simulation is a highly controllable quantum system able to mimic the dynamics of other complex quantum systems, known as an analog quantum simulator. Cold neutral atoms and trapped ions have been shown to be versatile quantum simulators [6, 7] thanks to their high flexibility, controllability, and scalability. They permit one to study a wide range of problems arising from atomic physics, relativistic quantum physics, or cosmology [8]. Since neutral atoms do not carry any net charge, the simulation of electric and magnetic condensed matter phenomena, such as the spin Hall effect, seems out of reach. To overcome this apparent difficulty, the idea has been proposed to create artificial electromagnetic potentials for neutral atoms based on atom-light interaction [9– 12]. These artificial potentials act on neutral atoms as real electromagnetic potentials act on charged particles. Many works on artificial gauge potentials induced by atom-light interactions adopt a single-particle approach [12]. The predicted potentials are then supposed to be valid for a system of weakly interacting atoms. So far, the consequences of atom-atom interactions on the generation of artificial gauge fields has little been studied. The aim of this work is to study the artificial gauge fields arising from the interaction of two Rydberg atoms driven by a common laser field [13]. In this situation, we show that the combined atom-atom and atom-field interactions give rise to nonuniform, artificial gauge potentials. We identify the mechanism responsible for the emergence of these gauge potentials. Analytical expressions for the latter indicate that the strongest artificial magnetic fields are reached in the regime intermediate between the dipole blockade regime and the regime in which the atoms are sufficiently far apart such that atom-light interaction dominates over atom-atom interactions. We discuss the differences and similarities of artificial gauge fields originating from resonant dipole-dipole [14] and van der Waals [15] interactions. We also give an estimation of experimentally attainable artificial magnetic fields resulting from this mechanism and we discuss their detection through the deflection of the atomic motion. [1] S. Lloyd, Science 273, 1073 (1996). [2] Yu. I. Manin, Computable and uncomputable, Sovetskoye Radio, Moscow, 1980. [3] R. P. Feynman, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 21, 467 (1982). [4] L. DiCarlo, J. M. Chow, J. M. Gambetta, Lev S. Bishop, B. R. Johnson, D. I. Schuster, J. Majer, A. Blais, L. Frunzio, S. M. Girvin, and R. J. Schoelkopf, Nature 460, 240 (2009). [5] N. Xu, J. Zhu, D. Lu, X. Zhou, X. Peng, and J. Du, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 130501 (2012). [6] I. Buluta and F. Nori, Science 326, 108 (2009). [7] I. Bloch, J. Dalibard and S. Nascimbéne, Nature Physics 8, 267 (2012). [8] R. Blatt and C. F. Roos, Nature Physics 8, 277 (2012). [9] G. Juzeliunas and P. Öhberg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 033602 (2004). [10] G. Juzeliunas, P. Öhberg, J. Ruseckas, and A. Klein, Phys. Rev. A 71, 053614 (2005). [11] G. Juzeliunas, J. Ruseckas, P. Öhberg, and M. Fleischhauer, Phys. Rev. A 73, 025602 (2006). [12] J. Dalibard, F. Gerbier, G. Juzeliu ̄nas, and P. Öhberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 1523 (2011). [13] A. Cesa and J. Martin, Phys. Rev. A 88,062703 (2013). [14] A. Gaëtan, Y. Miroshnychenko, T. Wilk, A. Chotia, M. Viteau, D. Comparat, P. Pillet, A. Browaeys, and P. Grangier, Nature Physics 5, 115 (2009). [15] L. Béguin, A. Vernier, R. Chicireanu, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 263201 (2013).
This chapter discusses the physics of ultracold gases in ‘artificial’ magnetic fields. The analogy between electronic systems in the presence of external magnetic fields and ultracold gases in rotating traps leads to the familiar concepts of Landau Levels, the integer Hall effect, the fractional quantum Hall effect, and laughing states for neutral particles. The second part analyses the possibility of simulating Abelian and non Abelian Lattice Gauge theories with ultracold gases. Finally, the state-of-the-art in generating artificial magnetic fields for ultracold gases is reviewed.