Emergent Kinetics and Fractionally Charged Excitations in 1D Spin-Orbit Coupled Flat Band Optical Lattices
Fei Lin, Chuanwei Zhang, V. W. Scarola
Abstract
Recent ultracold atomic gas experiments implementing synthetic spin-orbit coupling allow access to flat bands that emphasize interactions. We model spin-orbit coupled fermions in a one-dimensional flat band optical lattice. We introduce an effective Luttinger liquid theory to show that interactions generate collective excitations with emergent kinetics and fractional charge, analogous to emergence of Fermi-liquid properties in the fractional quantum Hall regime. Observation of these excitations would provide an important platform for exploring exotic quantum states derived solely from interactions.