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arXiv:2101.08716 · Physical Review A

Spectral properties of a three-body atom-ion hybrid system

Daniel J. Bosworth, Maxim Pyzh, Peter Schmelcher

Published Mar 5, 2021• 6 citations
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Abstract

We consider a hybrid atom-ion system consisting of a pair of bosons interacting with a single ion in a quasi-one-dimensional trapping geometry. Building upon a model potential for the atom-ion interaction developed in earlier theoretical works, we investigate the behavior of the low-energy eigenstates for varying contact interaction strength $g$ among the atoms. In particular, we contrast the two cases of a static ion and a mobile ion. Our study is carried out by means of the multilayer multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method for bosons, a numerically exact ab initio method for the efficient simulation of entangled mixtures. We find that repulsive atom interactions induce locally distinct modifications of the atomic probability distribution unique to each eigenstate. While the atoms on average separate from each other with increasing $g$, they do not necessarily separate from the ion. The mobility of the ion leads in general to greater separations among the atoms as well as between the atoms and the ion. Notably, we observe an exchange between the kinetic energy of the atoms and the atom-ion interaction energy for all eigenstates, which is both interaction and mobility induced. For the ground state, we provide an intuitive description by constructing an effective Hamiltonian for each species, which aptly captures the response of the atoms to the ion's mobility. Furthermore, the effective picture predicts enhanced localization of the ion, in agreement with our results from exact numerical simulations.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.103.033303

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•Jan 1, 2012•0 citations
We consider a hybrid atom-ion system consisting of a pair of bosons interacting with a single ion in a quasi-one-dimensional trapping geometry. Building upon a model potential for the atom-ion interaction developed in earlier theoretical works, we investigate the behavior of the low-energy eigenstates for varying contact interaction strength ggg among the atoms. In particular, we contrast the two cases of a static ion and a mobile ion. Our study is carried out by means of the multilayer multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method for bosons, a numerically exact ab initio method for the efficient simulation of entangled mixtures. We find that repulsive atom interactions induce locally distinct modifications of the atomic probability distribution unique to each eigenstate. While the atoms on average separate from each other with increasing ggg, they do not necessarily separate from the ion. The mobility of the ion leads in general to greater separations among the atoms as well as between the atoms and the ion. Notably, we observe an exchange between the kinetic energy of the atoms and the atom-ion interaction energy for all eigenstates, which is both interaction and mobility induced. For the ground state, we provide an intuitive description by constructing an effective Hamiltonian for each species, which aptly captures the response of the atoms to the ion's mobility. Furthermore, the effective picture predicts enhanced localization of the ion, in agreement with our results from exact numerical simulations.
We consider a trapped atomic ensemble of interacting bosons in the presence of a single trapped ion in a quasi-one-dimensional geometry. Our study is carried out by means of the newly developed multilayer-multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method for bosons, a numerical exact approach to simulate quantum many-body dynamics. In particular, we are interested in the scenario by which the ion is so strongly trapped that its motion can be effectively neglected. This enables us to focus on the atomic ensemble only. With the development of a model potential for the atom-ion interaction, we are able to numerically obtain the exact many-body ground state of the atomic ensemble in the presence of an ion. We analyze the influence of the atom number and the atom-atom interaction on the ground-state properties. Interestingly, for weakly interacting atoms, we find that the ion impedes the transition from the ideal gas behavior to the Thomas-Fermi limit. Furthermore, we show that this effect can be exploited to infer the presence of the ion both in the momentum distribution of the atomic cloud and by observing the interference fringes occurring during an expansion of the quantum gas. In the strong interacting regime, the ion modifies the fragmentation process in dependence of the atom number parity which allows a clear identification of the latter in expansion experiments. Hence, we propose in both regimes experimentally viable strategies to assess the impact of the ion on the many-body state of the atomic gas. This study serves as the first building block for systematically investigating the many-body physics of such hybrid system.
The remarkable single-particle control of individual ions combined with the versatility of ultracold atomic gases makes hybrid ion-atom systems an exciting new platform for quantum simulation of few- and many-body quantum physics. Here, we study theoretically the properties of a mobile ion immersed in a quantum degenerate gas of fermionic atoms. Using an effective low-energy atom-ion interaction together with a well-established approach that includes exactly two-body correlations, we calculate the full spectral response of the ion and demonstrate the existence of several quasiparticle branches, which are charged analogs of the Fermi polaron observed in neutral atomic gases. Due to the long-range nature of the atom-ion interaction, these ionic Fermi polarons have several properties distinct from their neutral counterparts such as the simultaneous presence of several stable states and smooth transitions from repulsive to attractive polarons with increasing interaction strength. Surprisingly, the residue of the ionic polaron is shown to increase with the Fermi density for fixed interaction strength, which is in marked contrast with the neutral polaron. The properties of the ionic polaron approach that of the neutral polaron only in the low-density limit where the average interparticle spacing is larger than the characteristic length of the atom-ion interaction. We finally analyze the effects of the Fermi gas on the molecular ions, which are bound atom-dimer states.
We explore the quantum dynamics of a one-dimensional trapped ultracold ensemble of bosonic atoms triggered by the sudden creation of a single ion. The numerical simulations are performed by means of the ab initio multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method for bosons which takes into account all correlations. The dynamics is analyzed via a cluster expansion approach, adapted to bosonic systems of fixed particle number, which provides a comprehensive understanding of the occurring many-body processes. After a transient during which the atomic ensemble separates into fractions which are unbound and bound with respect to the ion, we observe an oscillation in the atomic density which we attribute to the additional length and energy scale induced by the attractive long-range atom–ion interaction. This oscillation is shown to be the main source of spatial coherence and population transfer between the bound and the unbound atomic fraction. Moreover, the dynamics exhibits collapse and revival behavior caused by the dynamical build-up of two-particle correlations demonstrating that a beyond mean-field description is indispensable.
We explore a few-body mixture of two bosonic species confined in quasi-one-dimensional parabolic traps of different length scales. The ground-state phase diagrams in the three-dimensional parameter space spanned by the harmonic length scale ratio, interspecies coupling strength, and particle-number ratio are investigated. As a first case study we use the mean-field ansatz (MF) to perform a detailed analysis of the separation mechanism. It allows us to derive a simple and intuitive rule predicting which of the immiscible phases is energetically more favorable at the miscible-immiscible phase boundary. We estimate the critical coupling strength for the miscible-immiscible transition and perform a comparison to correlated many-body results obtained by means of the multilayer multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method for bosonic mixtures (ML-X). At a critical ratio of the trap frequencies, determined solely by the particle-number ratio, the deviations between MF and ML-X are very pronounced and can be attributed to a high degree of entanglement between the components. As a result, we evidence the breakdown of the effective one-body picture. Additionally, when many-body correlations play a substantial role, the one-body density is in general not sufficient for deciding upon the phase at hand which we demonstrate exemplarily.
We examine the spectral structure and many-body dynamics of two and three repulsively interacting bosons trapped in a one-dimensional double-well, for variable barrier height, inter-particle interaction strength, and initial conditions. By exact diagonalization of the many-particle Hamiltonian, we specifically explore the dynamical behavior of the particles launched either at the single-particle ground state or saddle-point energy, in a time-independent potential. We complement these results by a characterization of the cross-over from diabatic to quasi-adiabatic evolution under finite-time switching of the potential barrier, via the associated time evolution of a single particle's von Neumann entropy. This is achieved with the help of the multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree method for indistinguishable particles (MCTDH-X)-which also allows us to extrapolate our results for increasing particle numbers.
In this thesis, the tunneling dynamics of a few boson system in a double-well is investigated from an ab-initio prospective using the numerically exact Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree method. We first study a system consisting of single species of bosons with a spatially modulated interaction. The main emphasis is on the role of inhomogeneity and its effect on the tunneling. The dynamics changes from Rabi oscillations in the non-interacting case to a highly suppressed tunneling for intermediate interaction strengths followed by a reappearance of tunneling near the fermionization limit. With extreme interaction inhomogeneity in the regime of strong correlations we observe tunneling between the higher bands. A richer behavior is found for systems with higher particle number. For systems with more than two bosons, the inhomogeneity of the interaction can be tuned to generate tunneling resonances. These observations are explained on the basis of the few-body spectrum and stationary eigenstates. A tilted double-well and its interplay with the interaction asymmetry is discussed next. We demonstrate that the effects of the interaction can be compensated by the tilt leading to tunneling resonances. We then explore tunneling dynamics of binary bosonic mixtures. The focus is on the role of the inter- and intra-species interactions and their interplay. The dynamics is studied for three initial configurations: complete and partial population imbalance and a phase separated state. Increasing the inter-species interaction leads to a strong increase of the tunneling time period analogous to the quantum self-trapping for condensates. The intra-species repulsion can suppress or enhance the tunneling period depending on the strength of the inter-species correlations as well as the initial configuration. Completely correlated tunneling between the two species and within the same species as well as mechanisms of species separation and counterflow are revealed. These effects are explained by studying the many-body energy spectra as well as the properties of the contributing stationary states.