Magnetism of ultracold atoms in optical lattices

Tomas Andrijauskas

C. Morais Smith

Tien Tran, Yibo Wang, I. Herrera +6 more

In recent years, ultracold atoms trapped in periodic lattices have attracted much attention as a simulator for condensed matter systems because of the ability to manipulate and precisely control the ultracold atoms. Periodic arrays of magnetic microtraps patterned on a magnetic film provide a potential complementary tool to conventional optical lattices for trapping arrays of ultracold atoms. Compared to optical lattices, magnetic lat- tices allow a higher degree of design flexibility by allowing almost arbitrary lattice geometries and they also allow lower technical noise and state-selective trapping of atoms. This paper reports the trapping of ultracold 87Rb atoms in 0.7 μm-period triangular and square magnetic lattices integrated on an atom chip as a step towards using magnetic lattices as a new platform for simulating condensed matter and quantum many-body phenomena in nontrivial lattice geometries.

Immanuel Bloch

Daniel Greif

Luca Lepori, Giuseppe Mussardo, Andrea Trombettoni

We propose the experimental realization of (3+1) relativistic Dirac fermions using ultracold atoms in a rotating optical lattice or, alternatively, in a synthetic magnetic field. This approach has the advantage to give mass to the Dirac fermions by coupling the ultracold atoms to a Bragg pulse. A dimensional crossover from (3+1) to (2+1) Dirac fermions can be obtained by varying the anisotropy of the lattice. We also discuss under which conditions the interatomic potentials give rise to relativistically invariant interactions among the Dirac fermions.