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Science

Spin-orbit coupling in an optical lattice

J. Stajic

Published Oct 6, 2016• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum Simulation Studying topological matter in cold-atom systems may bring fresh insights, thanks to the intrinsic purity and controllability of this experimental setting. However, the necessary spin-orbit coupling can be tricky to engineer. Wu et al. conceived and experimentally demonstrated a simple scheme that involves only a single laser source and can be continuously tuned between one- and two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling (see the Perspective by Aidelsburger). Although this experiment used bosonic atoms, it is expected that the setup would also work for fermions. Science , this issue p. [83][1]; see also p. [35][2] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaf6689 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aah7087

DOI
10.1126/science.354.6308.77-k

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Quantum Simulation
Studying topological matter in cold-atom systems may bring fresh insights, thanks to the intrinsic purity and controllability of this experimental setting. However, the necessary spin-orbit coupling can be tricky to engineer. Wu et al. conceived and experimentally demonstrated a simple scheme that involves only a single laser source and can be continuously tuned between one- and two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling (see the Perspective by Aidelsburger). Although this experiment used bosonic atoms, it is expected that the setup would also work for fermions.
Science , this issue p. 83; see also p. 35
Cold atoms with laser-induced spin-orbit (SO) interactions provide promising platforms to explore novel quantum physics, in particular the exotic topological phases, beyond natural conditions of solids. The past several years have witnessed important progresses in both theory and experiment in the study of SO coupling and novel quantum states for ultracold atoms. Here we review the physics of the SO coupled quantum gases, focusing on the latest theoretical and experimental progresses of realizing SO couplings beyond one-dimension (1D), and the further investigation of novel topological quantum phases in such systems, including the topological insulating phases and topological superfluids. A pedagogical introduction to the SO coupling for ultracold atoms and topological quantum phases is presented. We show that the so-called optical Raman lattice schemes, which combine the creation of the conventional optical lattice and Raman lattice with topological stability, can provide minimal methods with high experimental feasibility to realize 1D to 3D SO couplings. The optical Raman lattices exhibit novel intrinsic symmetries, which enable the natural realization of topological phases belonging to different symmetry classes, with the topology being detectable through minimal measurement strategies. We introduce how the non-Abelian Majorana modes emerge in the SO coupled superfluid phases which can be topologically nontrivial or trivial, for which a few fundamental theorems are presented and discussed. The experimental schemes for achieving non-Abelian superfluid phases are given. Finally, we point out the future important issues in this rapidly growing research field.
Cold atoms with laser-induced spin-orbit (SO) interactions provide a platform to explore quantum physics beyond natural conditions of solids. Here we propose and experimentally realize two-dimensional (2D) SO coupling and topological bands for a rubidium-87 degenerate gas through an optical Raman lattice, without phase-locking or fine-tuning of optical potentials. A controllable crossover between 2D and 1D SO couplings is studied, and the SO effects and nontrivial band topology are observed by measuring the atomic cloud distribution and spin texture in momentum space. Our realization of 2D SO coupling with advantages of small heating and topological stability opens a broad avenue in cold atoms to study exotic quantum phases, including topological superfluids.
The essential role of synthetic spin-orbit coupling in discovering new topological matter phases with cold atoms is widely acknowledged. However, the engineering of spin-orbit coupling remains unclear for arbitrary-spin models due to the complexity of spin matrices. In this paper, we develop a more general but relatively straightforward method to achieve spin-orbit coupling for multispin models. Our approach hinges on controlling the coupling between distinct pseudospins through two intermediary states, resulting in tunneling with spin flips that have direction-dependent strength. The engineered spin-orbit coupling can facilitate topological phase transitions with Chern numbers over 1, a unique characteristic of multispin models compared to spin-1/2 models. By utilizing existing cold atom techniques, our proposed method provides an ideal platform for investigating topological properties related to large Chern numbers.
We propose a hierarchy set of minimal optical Raman lattice schemes to pave the way for experimental realization of high-dimensional spin-orbit (SO) couplings for ultracold atoms, including two-dimensional (2D) Dirac type, 2D Rashba type, and three-dimensional (3D) Weyl type. The proposed Dirac-type SO coupling exhibits precisely controllable high symmetry, for which a large topological phase region is predicted. The generation of 2D Rashba and 3D Weyl types requires that two sources of laser beams have distinct frequencies of factor 2 difference. Surprisingly, we find that 133Cs^{133}\mathrm{Cs}133Cs atoms provide an ideal candidate for the realization. A common and essential feature is of high controllability and absent of any fine-tuning in the realization, and the resulting SO coupled ultracold atoms have a long lifetime. In particular, a long-lived topological Bose gas of 2D Dirac SO coupling has been proved in the follow-up experiment. These schemes essentially improve over the current experimental accessibility and controllability, and open a realistic way to explore novel high-dimensional SO physics, particularly quantum many-body physics and quantum far-from-equilibrium dynamics with novel topology for ultracold atoms.
In this review we will discuss the experimental and theoretical progresses in studying spin–orbit coupled degenerate atomic gases during the last two years. We shall first review a series of pioneering experiments in generating synthetic gauge potentials and spin–orbit coupling in atomic gases by engineering atom-light interaction. Realization of spin–orbit coupled quantum gases opens a new avenue in cold atom physics, and also brings out a lot of new physical problems. In particular, the interplay between spin–orbit coupling and inter-atomic interaction leads to many intriguing phenomena. By reviewing recent theoretical studies of both interacting bosons and fermions with isotropic Rashba spin–orbit coupling, the key message delivered here is that spin–orbit coupling can enhance the interaction effects, and make the interaction effects much more dramatic even in the weakly interacting regime.