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arXiv:2001.01859 · Physical Review Letters

Tunable Nonreciprocal Quantum Transport through a Dissipative Aharonov-Bohm Ring in Ultracold Atoms

Wei Gou, Tao Chen, Dizhou Xie, Teng Xiao, Tian-Shu Deng, Bryce Gadway, Wei Yi, Bo Yan

Published Feb 20, 2020• 206 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of tunable, nonreciprocal quantum transport of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a momentum lattice. By implementing a dissipative Aharonov-Bohm (AB) ring in momentum space and sending atoms through it, we demonstrate a directional atom flow by measuring the momentum distribution of the condensate at different times. While the dissipative AB ring is characterized by the synthetic magnetic flux through the ring and the laser-induced loss on it, both the propagation direction and transport rate of the atom flow sensitively depend on these highly tunable parameters. We demonstrate that the nonreciprocity originates from the interplay of the synthetic magnetic flux and the laser-induced loss, which simultaneously breaks the inversion and the time-reversal symmetries. Our results open up the avenue for investigating nonreciprocal dynamics in cold atoms, and highlight the dissipative AB ring as a flexible building element for applications in quantum simulation and quantum information.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.124.070402

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We report the experimental observation of tunable, nonreciprocal quantum transport of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a momentum lattice. By implementing a dissipative Aharonov-Bohm (AB) ring in momentum space and sending atoms through it, we demonstrate a directional atom flow by measuring the momentum distribution of the condensate at different times. While the dissipative AB ring is characterized by the synthetic magnetic flux through the ring and the laser-induced loss on it, both the propagation direction and transport rate of the atom flow sensitively depend on these highly tunable parameters. We demonstrate that the nonreciprocity originates from the interplay of the synthetic magnetic flux and the laser-induced loss, which simultaneously breaks the inversion and the time-reversal symmetries. Our results open up the avenue for investigating nonreciprocal dynamics in cold atoms, and highlight the dissipative AB ring as a flexible building element for applications in quantum simulation and quantum information.
Realization of nonreciprocal transport is of great importance in the development of devices and systems that require the directional manipulation of signals or particles in information processing and modern physics. For ultracold atomic systems, the approaches based on synthetic dimensions have led to rapid advances in engineering quantum transport. Here, we use laser-coupled discrete momentum states of noninteracting ultracold atoms to synthesize a momentum lattice, and construct a closed ring with controllable tunneling phase in the momentum lattice. We measure the density evolution of atoms in the synthetic lattice with the single-site resolution, and observe the nonreciprocal dynamics by controlling the tunneling phase. We show the effect of both the applied phase and the coupling strength between two distinct population regions on the population distribution of atoms in the momentum lattice, and provide the optimal parameters for achieving the nonreciprocal transport.
We study the one-dimensional (1D) transport properties of an ultracold gas of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms through Aharonov-Bohm (AB) rings. Our system consists of a BoseEinstein condensate (BEC) that is outcoupled from a magnetic trap into a 1D waveguide which is made of two semiinfinite leads that join a ring geometry exposed to a magnetic flux φ. We specifically investigate the effects of a small atom-atom contact interaction strength on the AB oscillations. The main numerical tools that we use for this purpose are a mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) description and the truncated Wigner (tW) method. The latter allows for the description of incoherent transport and corresponds to a classical sampling of the evolution of the quantum bosonic many-body state through effective GP trajectories. We find that resonant transmission peaks move with an increasing interaction strength and can be suppressed for sufficiently strong interaction. We also observe that the coherent transmission blockade due to destructive interference at the AB flux φ = π is very robust with respect to the interaction strength. Aharonov-Bohm rings • Toroidal optical dipole trap Sheet beam Laguerre-Gaussian beam LG10 [1] Vlatt
The interplay between matter particles and gauge fields in physical spaces with nontrivial geometries can lead to novel topological quantum matter.However, detailed microscopic mechanisms are often obscure, and unconventional spaces are generally challenging to construct in solids.Highly controllable atomic systems can quantum simulate such physics, even those inaccessible in other platforms.Here, we realize a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) on a synthetic cylindrical surface subject to a net radial synthetic magnetic flux.We observe a symmetry-protected topological band structure emerging on this Hall cylinder but disappearing in the planar counterpart.BEC's transport observed as Bloch oscillations in the band structure is analogous to traveling on a Möbius strip in the momentum space, revealing topological band crossings protected by a nonsymmorphic symmetry.We demonstrate that breaking this symmetry induces a topological transition manifested as gap opening at band crossings, and further manipulate the band structure and BEC's transport by controlling the axial synthetic magnetic flux.Our work opens the door for using atomic quantum simulators to explore intriguing topological phenomena intrinsic in unconventional spaces.
We report the experimental implementation of discrete-time topological quantum walks of a Bose-Einstein condensate in momentum space. Introducing stroboscopic driving sequences to the generation of a momentum lattice, we show that the dynamics of atoms along the lattice is effectively governed by a periodically driven Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, which is equivalent to a discrete-time topological quantum walk. We directly measure the underlying topological invariants through time-averaged mean chiral displacements, which are consistent with our experimental observation of topological phase transitions. We then observe interaction-induced localization in the quantum-walk dynamics, where atoms tend to populate a single momentum-lattice site under interactions that are nonlocal in momentum space. Our experiment opens up the avenue of investigating discrete-time topological quantum walks using cold atoms, where the many-body environment and tunable interactions offer exciting new possibilities.
Abstract The manipulation of particle transport in synthetic quantum matter is an active research frontier for its theoretical importance and potential applications. Here we experimentally demonstrate an engineered topological transport in a synthetic flat-band lattice of ultracold 87 Rb atoms. We implement a quasi-one-dimensional rhombic chain with staggered flux in the momentum space of the atomic condensate and observe biased local oscillations that originate from the flat-band localization under the staggered synthetic flux. Based on these features, we design and experimentally confirm a state-dependent chiral transport under the periodic modulation of the synthetic flux. We show that the phenomenon is associated with the topology of the Floquet Bloch bands of a coarse-grained effective Hamiltonian. Our work opens the new avenue for exploring flat-band-assistant topological transport with ultracold atoms, and offers a new strategy for designing efficient quantum device with topological robustness.
Aharonov-Bohm (AB) caging, a special flat-band localization mechanism, has spurred great interest in different areas of physics. AB caging can be harnessed to explore the rich and exotic physics of quantum transport in flatband systems, where geometric frustration, disorder, and correlations act in a synergetic and distinct way than that in ordinary dispersive band systems. In contrast to the ordinary Anderson localization, where disorder induces localization and prevents transport, in flat band systems disorder can induce mobility, a phenomenon dubbed inverse Anderson transition. Here, we report on the experimental realization of the AB cage using a synthetic lattice in the momentum space of ultracold atoms with tailored gauge fields, and demonstrate the geometric localization due to the flat band and the inverse Anderson transition when correlated binary disorder is added to the system. Our experimental platform in a many-body environment provides a fascinating quantum simulator where the interplay between engineered gauge fields, localization, and topological properties of flat band systems can be finely explored.