Many-body Aharonov-Bohm caging in a lattice of rings

Abstract

We study a system of a few ultracold bosons loaded into states with orbital angular momentum $l=1$ of a one-dimensional staggered lattice of rings. Local eigenstates with winding numbers $+l$ and $\ensuremath{-}l$ form a Creutz ladder with a real dimension and a synthetic one. States with opposite winding numbers in adjacent rings are coupled through complex tunnelings, which can be tuned by modifying the central angle $\ensuremath{\phi}$ of the lattice. We analyze both the single-particle case and the few boson bound-state subspaces for the regime of strong interactions using perturbation theory, showing how the geometry of the system can be engineered to produce an effective $\ensuremath{\pi}$ flux through the plaquettes. We find nontrivial topological band structures and many-body Aharonov-Bohm caging in the $N$-particle subspaces even in the presence of a dispersive single-particle spectrum. Additionally, we study the family of models where the angle $\ensuremath{\phi}$ is introduced at an arbitrary lattice periodicity $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$. For $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}>2$, the $\ensuremath{\pi}$ flux becomes nonuniform, which enlarges the spatial extent of the Aharonov-Bohm caging as the number of flat bands in the spectrum increases. All the analytical results are benchmarked through exact diagonalization.