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.
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.
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 scheme to realize an interaction-induced twisted-bilayer lattice in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The key idea here is to utilize the intrinsic atomic interaction to couple different layers and dynamically induce a supercell structure, 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 intrinsic interaction effect arising from interacting bosonic ultracold atoms can dynamically induce both periodic (commensurable) and aperiodic (incommensurable) moir\'e structures. One of the interesting moir\'e-physics effects, i.e., the flat-band physics, is shown through investigating the dynamics of a wave packet of the BEC. Our proposal can be implemented using available state-of-the-art experimental techniques and leads to an alternative way to study twistronics in cold atom quantum simulators.
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.
Moiré superlattices, classified as a supercell periodic structure configured from a periodic lattice overlaps with its twisted counterpart, have been demonstrated to exhibit many emergent linear and nonlinear phenomena like moiré induced flat bands, unconventional superconductivity, unique linear classical wave localization and nonlinear localized modes. Recent studies are, however, mainly focused on twisted bilayer structures, the static and nonequilibrium physics of trilayer moiré superlattices have remained largely unknown. We here consider trilayer moiré optical lattices by which Bose−Einstein condensates are trapped, and demonstrate theoretically the emergent flat bands and nonlinear phenomena — localized gap modes in form of gap solitons and vortices with a topological charge s=1. We give a unified picture for constructing optimal (largest) photonic forbidden gaps in such trilayer moiré superlattices and reveal nonlinear localization mechanism therein. Computational studies demonstrated the robustness of these localized modes, enabling insightful inspections of moiré physics and exploring ongoing moiré photonics applications in twisted trilayer superlattices in optics and ultracold atoms.
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.
Moiré superlattices, a twisted functional structure crossing the periodic and nonperiodic potentials, have recently attracted great interest in multidisciplinary fields, including optics and ultracold atoms, because of their unique band structures, physical properties, and potential implications. Driven by recent experiments on quantum phenomena of bosonic gases, the atomic Bose–Einstein condensates in moiré optical lattices, by which other quantum gases such as ultracold fermionic atoms are trapped, could be readily achieved in ultracold atom laboratories, whereas the associated nonlinear localization mechanism remains unexploited. Here, we report the nonlinear localization theory of ultracold atomic Fermi gases in two-dimensional moiré optical lattices. The linear Bloch-wave spectrum of such a twisted structure exhibits rich nontrivial flat bands, which are separated by different finite bandgaps wherein the existence, properties, and dynamics of localized superfluid Fermi gas structures of two types, gap solitons and gap vortices (topological modes) with vortex charge S=1, are studied numerically. Our results demonstrate the wide stability regions and robustness of these localized structures, opening up a new avenue for studying soliton physics and moiré physics in ultracold atoms beyond bosonic gases.
Rotational misalignment or twisting of two monolayers of graphene strongly influences its electronic properties. Structurally, twisting leads to large periodic supercell structures, which in turn can support intriguing strongly correlated behavior. Here, we propose a highly tunable scheme to synthetically emulate twisted bilayer systems with ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. In our scheme, neither a physical bilayer nor twist is directly realized. Instead, two synthetic layers are produced exploiting coherently coupled internal atomic states, and a supercell structure is generated via a spatially dependent Raman coupling. To illustrate this concept, we focus on a synthetic square bilayer lattice and show that it leads to tunable quasiflatbands and Dirac cone spectra under certain magic supercell periodicities. The appearance of these features are explained using a perturbative analysis. Our proposal can be implemented using available state-of-the-art experimental techniques, and opens the route toward the controlled study of strongly correlated flatband accompanied by hybridization physics akin to magic angle bilayer graphene in cold atom quantum simulators.