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arXiv:2404.12682

Floquet engineering tunable periodic gauge fields and simulating real topological phases in cold alkaline-earth atom optical lattice

Wei Alex Wang, Zheng Zhang, Guixin Tang, Tao Wang

Published Apr 19, 2024• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose to synthesize tunable periodic gauge fields via Floquet engineering cold alkaline-earth atoms in one-dimensional optical lattice. The artificial magnetic flux is designed to emerge during the combined process of Floquet photon assisted tunneling and internal state transitions. By varying initial phases of driving protocol, our proposal presents the ability to smoothly tune the periodic flux. Moreover, we demonstrate that the effective two-leg flux ladder model can simulate one typical real topological insulator, which is described by the first Stiefel Whitney class and protected by the $PT$ symmetry. Benefiting from the long lifetime of excited states of alkaline-earth atoms, our work opens new possibilities for exploiting the physics related to gauge fields, such as topological phases, in the current cold atom platform.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2404.12682

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The recent experimental realization of clock-laser-induced synthetic gauge fields and one-dimensional spin-orbit coupling in ultracold alkaline-earth(-like) atoms provides a new way to explore topological quantum states with suppressed heating effects. Here, we propose a scheme for realizing a synthetic quantum Hall tube and ribbon in an optical lattice clock system with multiple optical clock transition couplings. The legs of the synthetic Hall system are composed of the atomic ground and metastable orbital states, and the couplings between the legs are generated by clock lasers, resulting in a synthetic gauge flux. We investigate the band structure and topological phase diagram under various conditions and demonstrate the phase transition. The momentum-resolved quench dynamics of the synthetic Hall system is analyzed to demonstrate the presence of gauge flux on plaquettes and reveal the critical point of the phase transition. The hyperfine spin can serve as an additional synthetic dimension, allowing a two-component Hall system to be realized in synthetic dimensions. A size-enlarged Hall system could be realized by coupling the magnetic sublevels and orbital states simultaneously. Our scheme is within reach of existing optical lattice clocks and thus provides a realistic method to achieve topological quantum Hall systems with ultracold alkaline-earth(-like) atoms. This study paves the way for realizing quantum spin Hall states with hyperfine spins and has the potential to explore more interesting topological phases.