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Physical Review A

Zitterbewegungfor ultracold atoms in the merging of Dirac points

Zhi Li, Hui Cao, Libin Fu

Published Feb 23, 2015• 18 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate Zitterbewegung (ZB) of the ultracold atoms in a tunable honeycomb optical lattice. By tuning the parameters of the lattice one can realize the merging of two Dirac points. The process of two Dirac points merging into a hybrid point implies a topological phase transition from a semimetallic to a band insulator phase. After merging, it presents a linear-quadratic dispersion relation which is linear in one direction and quadric in the other orthogonal direction. We show that ZB occurs isotropically before merging but occurs only in the direction of the linear dispersion after merging. Furthermore, we obtain that ZB is exponentially damping for a negative energy gap but is a stable oscillation for a positive energy gap. The frequency and amplitude of ZB can be controlled in a detectable range, so the phenomena can be observable in the ultracold atomic experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.91.023623

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We investigate Zitterbewegung (ZB) of the ultracold atoms in a tunable honeycomb optical lattice. By tuning the parameters of the lattice one can realize the merging of two Dirac points. The process of two Dirac points merging into a hybrid point implies a topological phase transition from a semimetallic to a band insulator phase. After merging, it presents a linear-quadratic dispersion relation which is linear in one direction and quadric in the other orthogonal direction. We show that ZB occurs isotropically before merging but occurs only in the direction of the linear dispersion after merging. Furthermore, we obtain that ZB is exponentially damping for a negative energy gap but is a stable oscillation for a positive energy gap. The frequency and amplitude of ZB can be controlled in a detectable range, so the phenomena can be observable in the ultracold atomic experiments.
Dirac points lie at the heart of many fascinating phenomena in condensed matter physics, from massless electrons in graphene to the emergence of conducting edge states in topological insulators. At a Dirac point, two energy bands intersect linearly and the particles behave as relativistic Dirac fermions. In solids, the rigid structure of the material sets the mass and velocity of the particles, as well as their interactions. A different, highly flexible approach is to create model systems using fermionic atoms trapped in an optical lattice, a method which so far has only been applied to explore simple lattice structures. In my talk I will report on the creation of Dirac points with adjustable properties in a tunable honeycomb optical lattice [1]. Using momentum-resolved interband transitions, we observe a minimum band gap inside the Brillouin zone at the position of the Dirac points. We exploit the unique tunability of our lattice potential to adjust the effective mass of the Dirac fermions by breaking the inversion symmetry of the lattice. Moreover, changing the lattice anisotropy allows us to move the position of the Dirac points inside the Brillouin zone. When increasing the anisotropy beyond a critical limit, the two Dirac points merge and annihilate each other. We map out this topological transition in lattice parameter space and find excellent agreement with ab initio calculations. Our results not only pave the way to model materials where the topology of the band structure plays a crucial role, but also provide the possibility to explore many-body phases resulting from the interplay of complex lattice geometries with interactions.
We study the properties of an ultracold Fermi gas loaded in a square optical lattice and subjected to an external and classical non-Abelian gauge field. We calculate the energy spectrum of the system and show that the Dirac points in the energy spectrum will remain quite stable under on-site interaction of certain strength. Once the on-site interaction grows stronger than a critical value, the Dirac points will no longer be stable and merge into a single hybrid point. This merging implies a quantum phase transition from a semimetallic phase to a band insulator. The on-site interaction between ultracold fermions could be conveniently controlled by Feshbach resonances in current experiments. We propose that this interaction-induced merging of Dirac points may be observed in the ultracold-Fermi-gas experiments.
Ultracold gases in optical lattices have proved to be a flexible tool to simulate many different phenomena of solid state physics [1, 2]. Recently, optical lattices with complex geometries have been realized [3, 4, 5, 6, 7], paving the way to simulating more realistic systems. The honeycomb structure has recently become accessible in an optical lattice composed of mutually perpendicular laser beams. This lattice structure exhibits topological features in its band structure – the Dirac points. At these points, two energy bands intersect linearly and the particles behave as relativistic Dirac fermions. In optical lattices, Bloch oscillations [8] resolved both in time and in quasi-momentum space can be directly observed. We make use of such Bloch-Zener oscillations to probe the vanishing energy gap at the Dirac points as well as their position in the band structure. In small band gap regions, we observe Landau-Zener tunneling [7, 9] to the second band and the regions of maximum transfer can be identified with the position of the Dirac points.
Inspired by the recent creation of a honeycomb optical lattice and the realization of a Mott-insulating state in a square lattice by shaking, we study here the shaken honeycomb optical lattice. For a periodic shaking of the lattice, Floquet theory may be applied to derive a time-independent Hamiltonian. In this effective description, the hopping parameters are renormalized by a Bessel function, which depends on the shaking direction, amplitude, and frequency. Consequently, the hopping parameters can vanish and even change sign, in an anisotropic manner, thus yielding different band structures. Here, we study the merging and the alignment of Dirac points and dimensional crossovers from the two-dimensional system to one-dimensional chains and zero-dimensional dimers. We also consider next-nearest-neighbor hopping, which breaks the particle-hole symmetry and leads to a metallic phase when it becomes dominant over the nearest-neighbor hopping. Furthermore, we include weak repulsive on-site interactions and find the density profiles for different values of the hopping parameters and interactions, both in a homogeneous system and in the presence of a trapping potential. Our results may be experimentally observed by use of momentum-resolved Raman spectroscopy.
We investigate the dynamics of the Weyl quasiparticles emerged in an optical lattice where the topological Weyl semimetal and trivial band insulator phases can be adjusted with the on-site energy. The evolution of the density distribution is demonstrated to have an anomalous velocity in the Weyl semimetal but a steady Zitterbewegung effect in the band insulator. Our analysis demonstrates that the chirality of the system can be directly determined from the positions of the atomic center of mass. Furthermore, the amplitude and the period of the relativistic Zitterbewegung oscillations are shown to be observable with the time-of-flight experiments.