Experimental investigation of spin-orbit coupled BECs

Robert Niffenegger, Chunlei Qu, Abraham J. Olson +2 more

Chunlei Qu, Kuei Sun, Chuanwei Zhang

The experimental realization of emergent spin-orbit coupling through laser-induced Raman transitions in ultracold atoms paves the way for exploring novel superfluid physics and simulating exotic many-body phenomena. A recent proposal with the use of Laguerre-Gaussian lasers enables another fundamental type of coupling between spin and orbital angular momentum (SOAM) in ultracold atoms. We hereby study quantum phases of a realistic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with this synthetic SOAM coupling in a disk-shaped geometry, respecting radial inhomogeneity of the Raman coupling. We find that the experimental system naturally resides in a strongly interacting regime in which the phase diagram significantly deviates from the single-particle picture. The interplay between SOAM coupling and interaction leads to rich structures in spin-resolved position and momentum distributions, including a stripe phase and various types of immiscible states. Our results would provide a guide for an experimental investigation of SOAM-coupled BECs.

Yan Li, Chunlei Qu, Yong-Sheng Zhang +1 more

Synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling, an important ingredient for quantum simulation of many exotic condensed matter physics, has recently attracted considerable attention. The static and dynamic properties of a SO-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) have been extensively studied in both theory and experiment. Here we numerically investigate the generation and propagation of a dynamical spin-density wave (SDW) in a SO-coupled BEC using a fast moving Gaussian-shaped barrier. We find that the SDW wavelength is sensitive to the barrier's velocity while varies slightly with the barrier's peak potential or width. We qualitatively explain the generation of SDW by considering a rectangular barrier in a one-dimensional system. Our results may motivate future experimental and theoretical investigations of rich dynamics in the SO-coupled BEC induced by a moving barrier.

Peter Engels

Pengjun Wang, Jing Zhang

We review our recent experimental realization and investigation of a spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) and quantum degenerate Fermi gas. By using two counter-propagating Raman lasers and controlling the different frequency of two Raman lasers to engineer the atom-light interaction, we first study the SO coupling in BEC. Then we study SO coupling in Fermi gas. We observe the spin dephasing in spin dynamics and momentum distribution asymmetry of the equilibrium state as hallmarks of SO coupling in a Fermi gas. To clearly reveal the property of SO coupling Fermi gas, we also study the momentum-resolved radio-frequency spectroscopy which characterizes the energy-momentum dispersion and spin composition of the quantum states. We observe the change of fermion surfaces in different helicity branches with different atomic density, which indicates that a Lifshitz transition of the Fermi surface topology change can be found by further cooling the system. At last, we study the momentum-resolved Raman spectroscopy of an ultracold Fermi gas.

Khamehchi, Maren Mossman, Peter Engels