Many-body systems at low temperatures generally organize themselves into ordered phases, whose nature and symmetries are captured by an order parameter. This order parameter is spatially uniform in the simplest cases, for example the macroscopic magnetization of a ferromagnetic material. Non-uniform situations also exist in nature, for instance in antiferromagnetic materials, where the magnetization alternates in space, or in the so-called stripe phases emerging for itinerant electrons in strongly correlated materials. Understanding such inhomogeneously ordered states is of central importance in many-body physics. Here we study experimentally the magnetic ordering of itinerant spin-1 bosons in inhomegeneous spin domains at nano-Kelvin temperatures. We demonstrate that spin domains form spontaneously, that is purely because of the antiferromagnetic interactions between the atoms and in the absence of external magnetic forces, after a phase separation transition. Furthermore, we explore how the equilibrium domain configuration emerges from an initial state prepared far from equilibrium.
Many-body systems at low temperatures generally organize themselves into ordered phases, whose nature and symmetries are captured by an order parameter. This order parameter is spatially uniform in the simplest cases, for example the macroscopic magnetization of a ferromagnetic material. Non-uniform situations also exist in nature, for instance in antiferromagnetic materials, where the magnetization alternates in space, or in the so-called stripe phases emerging for itinerant electrons in strongly correlated materials. Understanding such inhomogeneously ordered states is of central importance in many-body physics. Here we study experimentally the magnetic ordering of itinerant spin-1 bosons in inhomegeneous spin domains at nano-Kelvin temperatures. We demonstrate that spin domains form spontaneously, that is purely because of the antiferromagnetic interactions between the atoms and in the absence of external magnetic forces, after a phase separation transition. Furthermore, we explore how the equilibrium domain configuration emerges from an initial state prepared far from equilibrium.
A central goal in condensed matter and modern atomic physics is the exploration of manybody quantum phases and the universal characteristics of quantum phase transitions in so far as they differ from those established for thermal phase transitions. Compared with condensedmatter systems, atomic gases are more precisely constructed and also provide the unique opportunity to explore quantum dynamics far from equilibrium. Here we identify a second-order quantum phase transition in a gaseous spinor BoseEinstein condensate, a quantum fluid in which superfluidity and magnetism, both associated with symmetry breaking, are simultaneously realized. Rb spinor condensates were rapidly quenched across this transition to a ferromagnetic state and probed using in-situ magnetization imaging to observe spontaneous symmetry breaking through the formation of spin textures, ferromagnetic domains and domain walls. The observation of topological defects produced by this symmetry breaking, identified as polar-core spin-vortices containing non-zero spin current but no net mass current, represents the first phase-sensitive in-situ detection of vortices in a gaseous superfluid.
The recent experimental advances in the field of quantum spin materials have led to well-controlled systems which can be used in order to simulate complex quantum models in a clean fashion. Here we discuss how fascinating effects normally known from bosonic systems such as the Bose-Einstein condensation can be investigated with the help of such materials. We discuss as an example how a crossover between an effectively one-dimensional geometry described by a Luttinger liquid to a three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensation can be induced. Additionally, we point out how more complex phases as the Bose-glass phase could be realized in these quantum magnets. Introduction Although it can seem paradoxical, the quantum magnetic states found in insulators offer an interesting route to study Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) and more generally phenomena related to itinerant, interacting bosonic systems. In many materials, the repulsion between the electrons causes the ground state to be a Mott insulator with one electron localized per site. In such a case, the charge degrees of freedom are completely locked by large charge gaps (usually of the order of tens of electron volts). However, one can study the fascinating physics of the spin degrees of freedom. As was shown a long time ago, the localized spins are coupled by a so-called superexchange which may be ferro- or antiferromagnetic. The properties of the exchange coupling between the spins depend mainly on the underlying atomic structure of the material. The resulting physics is extremely rich and such materials can have a host of phases ranging from ordered magnetic phases to so-called spin-liquid phases in which spin–spin correlations decay extremely fast with distance. The field of research concerning these materials, dubbed quantum magnetism, is thus an extremely active field in its own right [1]. Additionally, one can exploit the formal mapping that exists between spin operators and bosonic ones, as will be described in the next section, to connect the magnetic materials to itinerant bosonic systems with interactions between the bosons. This opens the way to use such quantum spin systems as quantum simulators. A quantum simulator means that the experimental system can be employed in order to “solve” in a controlled way a problem/Hamiltonian known from a different less controlled physical realization, e.g., inspired by fundamental many-body physics, quantum information or computational applications.
This thesis discusses non-equilibrium phenomena in antiferromagnetic spinor quantum gases. We investigate, both experimentally and theoretically, the quench dynamics of antiferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in the vicinity of a zero temperature quantum phase transition. A microwave dressing field was used as a novel tool to access the polar to antiferrmagnetic quantum phase transition at the quadratic Zeeman shift, q=0. By performing instantaneous quenches across the phase transition,a dynamical instability was induced in the atomic cloud. This lead to pair formation and rapid amplification of spin +/-1 atoms through spin-mixing collisions. The spatial ordering kinetics in the vicinity of the phase transition was quantified by performing the local spin measurement. The coarsening dynamics was observed for the instability for q < 0, as it nucleated small domains that grew to the axial size of the cloud. Rich nonequilibrium behavior was observed in the form of growth and decay of both nematic and magnetic spin waves, following the quench. The spatiotemporal evolution was characterized through two particle correlations between atoms in each pair of spin states, which revealed dramatic differences between the dynamics of the spin correlations and those of the spin populations. \nFinally, we demonstrate the remarkable influence of linear Zeeman term on non-equilibrium dynamics of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates. We show that contrary to prior understanding magnetic field gradient actually suppresses the tendency of spin 0 state to separate into spin +/-1 state. This reconciles the Bogoliubov discrepancies and leads to a dramatic sharpening of the transition point, resulting in a resolution at the 1 Hz level. Our results point to the use of dynamics, rather than equilibrium quantities for high precision measurements of phase transitions in quantum gases.
Since the experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in 1995, the field of ultracold atoms has expanded rapidly, and has become an important arena for exploring diverse quantum many-body physics, as highlighted by the experimental observation of quantum phase transitions in the system of bosons in a periodic potential, which is described by the Bose-Hubbard model.Recently, ultracold atoms with spin degrees of freedom are actively studied because the coupling between the internal spin degrees of freedom and the spatial degrees of freedom can give rise to novel and interesting physics.A minimal model for studying such physics is the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model, which describes spin-1 bosons in a periodic potential.The model has a spin-dependent interaction, which can be ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic, and it is known that although the ferromagnetic model resembles the spinless counterpart, the antiferromagnetic model exhibits totally different features, which make the model much more intensively studied compared with the ferromagnetic one.However, the presence of an external magnetic field can change the situation, because the positive quadratic Zeeman energy competes with the ferromagnetic interaction, which can give rise to rich phases.In this thesis, we explore the ground-state and nonzero-temperature phase diagrams of the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model under an external magnetic field.To analyze the model, we use an approximation method called the decoupling approximation, or equivalently, the Gutzwiller variational ansatz.It is shown that, in addition to the Mott insulator phase, the model possesses two superfluid phases.Moreover, for large values of a spin-dependent interaction, the phase transitions between the two superfluid phases can be discontinuous.Such discontinuous phase transitions are shown to survive at nonzero but sufficiently low temperature.The discontinuous phase transitions are in clear contrast to the mean-field theory of weakly interacting spin-1 bosons without a lattice, which predicts that the corresponding phase transition is continuous, signifying the importance of the effect of strong interactions on the interplay between the spatial and spinor degrees of freedom. 4.1.2The grand Hamiltonian . . . . . . . . .
We have experimentally observed the emergence of spontaneous antiferromagnetic spatial order in a sodium spinor Bose-Einstein condensate that was quenched through a magnetic phase transition. For negative values of the quadratic Zeeman shift, a gas initially prepared in the F=1, m(F)=0 state collapsed into a dynamically evolving superposition of all three spin projections, m(F)=0, ±1. The quench gave rise to rich, nonequilibrium behavior where both nematic and magnetic spin waves were generated. We characterized the spatiotemporal evolution through two particle correlations between atoms in each pair of spin states. These revealed dramatic differences between the dynamics of the spin correlations and those of the spin populations.
We investigate strongly correlated spin-1 ultracold gases with antiferromagnetic interactions in a three-dimensional optical lattice in the presence of an external magnetic field, based on bosonic dynamical mean-field theory. Due to the interplay of spin-dependent and quadratic Zeeman interactions, the system demonstrates competing magnetic orders, including nematic, spin-singlet and ferromagnetic insulating phases, depending on longitudinal magnetization. The dependence of first-order superfluid-insulator transition on external magnetic fields is explored. Interestingly, at low magnetic field, we find an abnormal multi-step condensation of the strongly correlated superfluid, i.e. the critical condensing temperature of the mF=−1 component demonstrates an abnormal increase with longitudinal magnetization, in contrast to weakly interacting cases.