Recent experiments have realized a twisted-bilayer-like optical potential for ultracold atoms, which in contrast to solid-state setups may allow for an arbitrary ratio between the inter- and intralayer couplings. For commensurate moir\'e twistings, a large-enough interlayer coupling results in particle transport dominated by channel formation. For incommensurate twistings, the interlayer coupling acts as an effective disorder strength. Whereas for weak couplings the whole spectrum remains ergodic, at a critical value part of the eigenspectrum transitions into multifractal states. A similar transition may be observed as well as a function of an energy bias between the two layers. Our theoretical study reveals atoms in a twisted-bilayer system of square optical lattices as an interesting platform for the study of ergodicity breaking and multifractality.
Recent experiments have realized a twisted-bilayer-like optical potential for ultracold atoms, which in contrast to solid-state setups may allow for an arbitrary ratio between the inter- and intralayer couplings. For commensurate moir'e twistings, a large-enough interlayer coupling results in particle transport dominated by channel formation. For incommensurate twistings, the interlayer coupling acts as an effective disorder strength. Whereas for weak couplings the whole spectrum remains ergodic, at a critical value part of the eigenspectrum transitions into multifractal states. A similar transition may be observed as well as a function of an energy bias between the two layers. Our theoretical study reveals atoms in a twisted-bilayer system of square optical lattices as an interesting platform for the study of ergodicity breaking and multifractality.
Recent experiments have realized ultracold gases in twisted-bilayer optical lattices. We show that interacting bosons in these lattices present a highly nontrivial ground-state physics resulting from the interplay between inter- and intralayer hopping and interactions. This physics is crucially determined by site clusterization, which we properly take into account by developing a specifically tailored cluster Gutzwiller approach. Clusterization results in a large variety of different Mott-like phases characterized by typically different occupations of the clusters, and in the appearance of pockets of sites in between which particles can freely move, but which remain for any practical purposes disconnected from the rest of the sites. This peculiar phase, which resembles the well-known Bose glass phase, may occur even for commensurate twist angles and is further enhanced when the twisting is incommensurate. Moreover, in the incommensurate case, the formation of mobility islands may occur even without interlayer hopping solely due to interlayer interactions.
Moiré related physics in twisted bilayer two-dimensional (2D) materials has attracted widespread interest in condensed matter physics. Simulation of moiré related physics in cold atom platform is expected to outperform the 2D materials thanks to its advantage of higher tunablility. Here, we demonstrate that, the cold atom platform enables a new mechanism of moiré lattice formation, induced by interlayer interaction with intrinsic "dynamical" character, in contrast to conventional moiré lattice induced by "static" ways such as single-particle interlayer tunneling. Specifically, we consider a twisted bilayer Bose-Hubbard model with vanishing interlayer tunneling, and the bilayer is solely coupled through interlayer interaction that originates from contact interaction of atoms. We find that this system hosts a plethora of novel phases unique to this dynamical lattice, including a variety of Mott insulator (MI) and superfluid (SF) phases either preserving or breaking moiré lattice symmetry, phases with one layer in SF and the other in MI, "interlocked" MI, and self-localized phases at commensurate twist angles, which exhibits the characteristics of Bose glass and quasi-many-body localization in the absence of (quasi)disorder or quasicrystalline lattices. Our prediction can be readily observed in current experimental setup of twisted bilayer optical lattices, opening up new avenues for exploring the rich physics of interaction induced moiré systems in cold atoms.
A controlled twist between separate potentials can drastically influence localization properties of quantum particles between ordered and (quasi)disordered limits. Transport properties of single-particle and correlated fermionic materials have been extensively studied in connection with twisted bilayer graphene, but their bosonic counterpart remains largely unexplored. Here, we study bosonic matter in twisted potentials. We use continuous-space quantum Monte Carlo simulations to determine the unique phase diagrams of strongly correlated ultracold bosons in twisted optical lattices. For commensurate twisting angles, spectral gaps govern the formation of insulators, separated by thin superfluid domains. These domains form weak superfluids; with low superfluid fraction at zero temperature and high sensitivity to thermal fluctuations, but may be stabilized under appropriate parameter control. In contrast, slightly changing the twisting angle to an incommensurate value destroys most spectral gaps, leaving behind a prominent Bose glass phase. Our results are directly applicable to current generation experiments that quantum simulate moiré physics. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Abstract Observation of strong correlations and superconductivity in twisted-bilayer-graphene have stimulated tremendous interest in fundamental and applied physics. In this system, the superposition of two twisted honeycomb lattices, generating a Moire pattern, is the key to the observed flat electronic bands, slow electron velocity and large density of states. Despite these observations, a full understanding of the emerging superconductivity from the coupled layers and the appearance of a small magic angle remain a hot topic of research. Here, we demonstrate a quantum simulation platform to study superfluids in twisted bilayer lattices based on Bose-Einstein condensates loaded into spin-dependent optical lattices. The lattices are made of two sets of laser beams that independently address atoms in different spin states, which form the synthetic dimension accommodating the two layers. The twisted angle of the two lattices is controlled by the relative angle of the laser beams. We show that atoms in each spin state only feel one set of the lattice and the interlayer coupling can be controlled by microwave coupling between the spin states. Our system allows for flexible control of both the inter- and intralayer couplings. Furthermore we directly observe the spatial Moire pattern and the momentum diffraction, which confirm the presence of atomic superfluid in the bilayer lattices. Our system constitutes a powerful platform to investigate the physics underlying the superconductivity in twisted-bilayer-graphene and to explore other novel quantum phenomena difficult to realize in materials.
Twisted bilayer materials provide a versatile platform for realizing correlated topological states. Motivated by the recent experimental realization of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates in twisted bilayer optical lattices, we investigate the emergence of fractional topological phases in such systems. For experimentally realistic parameters, the single-particle spectrum hosts a pair of quasi-degenerate nearly flat moiré bands. We show using self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations that atomic interactions spontaneously break time-reversal symmetry, lift the quasi-degeneracy, and generate an isolated nearly flat band with a nonzero Chern number. At fractional filling, exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian projected to this band reveals a threefold degenerate ground-state manifold and a characteristic particle entanglement spectrum, providing strong evidence for a fractional Chern insulator. The resulting many-body gap is of order 10−3ER, corresponding to a nanokelvin energy scale accessible to state-of-the-art cold-atom experiments. Our scheme requires neither spin-orbit coupling, as in transition metal dichalcogenides, nor a finite magnetic field, as in existing twisted-bilayer-graphene experiments, providing a highly tunable route to strongly correlated topological phases in twisted bilayer optical lattices.
Creating crystal bilayers twisted with respect to each other would lead to large periodic supercell structures, which can support a wide range of novel electron correlated phenomena, where the full understanding is still under debate. Here, we propose a new scheme to realize a nonlinearity-induced dynamical self-organized twisted-bilayer lattice in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The key idea here is to utilize the nonlinear effect from the intrinsic atomic interactions to couple different layers and induce a dynamical self-organized supercell structure, dramatically distinct from the conventional wisdom to achieve the static twisted-bilayer lattices. To illustrate that, we study the dynamics of a two-component BEC and show that the nonlinear interaction effect naturally emerged in the Gross-Pitaevskii equation of interacting bosonic ultracold atoms can dynamically induce both periodic (commensurable) and aperiodic (incommensurable) moiré structures. One of the interesting moiré phenomena, i.e., the flat-band physics, is shown through investigating the dynamics of the wave packet of BEC. Our proposal can be implemented using available state-of-the-art experimental techniques and reveal a profound connection between the nonlinearity and twistronics in cold atom quantum simulators.