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arXiv:2501.07293 · SciPost Physics

Feedback cooling of fermionic atoms in optical lattices

Wenhua Zhao, Ling-Na Wu, Francesco Petiziol, André Eckardt

Published Sep 25, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

We discuss the preparation of topological insulator states with fermionic ultracold atoms in optical lattices by means of measurement-based Markovian feedback control. The designed measurement and feedback operators induce an effective dissipative channel that stabilizes the desired insulator state, either in an exact way or approximately in the case where additional experimental constraints are assumed. Successful state preparation is demonstrated in one-dimensional insulators as well as for Haldane’s Chern insulator, by calculating the fidelity between the target ground state and the steady state of the feedback-modified master equation. The fidelity is obtained numerically through exact diagonalization or via time evolution of the system with moderate sizes. For larger 2D systems, we compare the mean occupation of the single-particle eigenstates for the ground and steady state computed through mean-field kinetic equations.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphys.19.3.073

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We discuss the preparation of topological insulator states with fermionic ultracold atoms in optical lattices by means of measurement-based Markovian feedback control. The designed measurement and feedback operators induce an effective dissipative channel that stabilizes the desired insulator state, either in an exact way or approximately in the case where additional experimental constraints are assumed. Successful state preparation is demonstrated in one-dimensional insulators as well as for Haldane’s Chern insulator, by calculating the fidelity between the target ground state and the steady state of the feedback-modified master equation. The fidelity is obtained numerically through exact diagonalization or via time evolution of the system with moderate sizes. For larger 2D systems, we compare the mean occupation of the single-particle eigenstates for the ground and steady state computed through mean-field kinetic equations.
Engineered dissipation can be employed to prepare interesting quantum many-body states in a nonequilibrium fashion. The basic idea is to obtain the state of interest as the unique steady state of a quantum master equation, irrespective of the initial state. Due to a fundamental competition of topology and locality, the dissipative preparation of gapped topological phases with a nonvanishing Chern number has so far remained elusive. Here, we study the open quantum system dynamics of fermions on a two-dimensional lattice in the framework of a Lindblad master equation. In particular, we discover a mechanism to dissipatively prepare a topological steady state with nonzero Chern number by means of short-range system bath interaction. Quite remarkably, this gives rise to a stable topological phase in a nonequilibrium phase diagram. We demonstrate how our theoretical construction can be implemented in a microscopic model that is experimentally feasible with cold atoms in optical lattices.
Engineered dissipation can be employed to prepare interesting quantum many body states in a non-equilibrium fashion. The basic idea is to obtain the state of interest as the unique steady state of a quantum master equation, irrespective of the initial state. Due to a fundamental competition of topology and locality, the dissipative preparation of gapped topological phases with a non-vanishing Chern number has so far remained elusive. Here, we study the open quantum system dynamics of fermions on a two-dimensional lattice in the framework of a Lindblad master equation. In particular, we discover a mechanism to dissipatively prepare a topological steady state with non-zero Chern number by means of short-range system bath interaction. Quite remarkably, this gives rise to a stable topological phase in a non-equilibrium phase diagram. We demonstrate how our theoretical construction can be implemented in a microscopic model that is experimentally feasible with cold atoms in optical lattices.
We propose and investigate a scheme for engineering a synthetic thermal bath for a bosonic quantum gas in a one-dimensional optical lattice based on Markovian feedback control. The performance of our scheme is quantified by the fidelity between the steady state of the system and the effective thermal state. For double-well and triple-well systems with non-interacting particles, the steady state is found to be an exact thermal state, which is attributed to the fact that the transfer rates between all pairs of coupled eigenstates satisfy detailed balance condition. The scenario changes when there are more lattice sites, where the detailed balance condition does not hold any more, but remains an accurate approximation. Remarkably, our scheme performs very well at low and high temperature regimes, with the fidelity close to one. The performance at intermediate temperatures~(where a crossover into a Bose condensed regime occurs) is slightly worse, and the fidelity shows a gentle decrease with increasing system size. We also discuss the interacting cases. In contrast to the non-interacting cases, the scheme is found to perform better at a higher temperature. Another difference is that the minimal temperature that can be engineered is nonzero and increases with the interaction strength.
Floquet engineering is an important tool for realizing topologically nontrivial band structures for charge-neutral atoms in optical lattices. However, the preparation of a topological-band-insulator-type state of fermions, with one nontrivial quasi-energy band filled completely and the others empty, is challenging as a result of both driving induced heating as well as imperfect adiabatic state preparation (with the latter induced by the unavoidable gap closing when passing the topological transition). An alternative procedure that has been proposed is to prepare such states dissipatively, i.e. as a steady state that emerges when coupling the system to reservoirs. Here we discuss a concrete scheme that couples the system to a weakly interacting Bose condensate given by second atomic species acting as a heat bath. Our strategy relies on the engineering of the potential for the bath particles, so that they occupy weakly coupled tubes perpendicular to the two-dimensional system. Using Floquet-Born-Markov theory, we show that the resulting nonequilibrium steady state of the driven-dissipative system approximates a topological insulator. We even find indications for the approximate stabilization of an anomalous Floquet topological insulator, a state that is impossible to realize in equilibrium.
Optical box traps for cold atoms offer new possibilities for quantum-gas experiments. Building on their exquisite spatial and temporal control, we propose to engineer system-reservoir configurations using box traps, in view of preparing and manipulating topological atomic states in optical lattices. First, we consider the injection of particles from the reservoir to the system: this scenario is shown to be particularly well suited to activate energy-selective chiral edge currents, but also, to prepare fractional Chern insulating ground states. Then, we devise a practical evaporative-cooling scheme to effectively cool down atomic gases into topological ground states. Our open-system approach to optical-lattice settings provides a new path for the investigation of ultracold quantum matter, including strongly-correlated and topological phases.