Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Physical Review A

Floquet engineering tunable periodic gauge fields and simulating real topological phases in a cold-alkaline-earth-metal-atom optical lattice

Wei Wang, Zheng Zhang, Guixin Tang, Tao Wang

Published Aug 6, 2024• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose to synthesize tunable periodic gauge fields via Floquet engineering cold-alkaline-earth-metal atoms in one-dimensional optical lattice. The artificial magnetic flux is designed to emerge during the combined process of Floquet photon-assisted tunneling and internal state transitions. By varying the initial phases of the driving protocol, our proposal presents the ability to smoothly tune the periodic flux. Moreover, we demonstrate that the effective two-leg flux ladder model can simulate one typical real topological insulator, which is described by the first Stiefel-Whitney class and protected by the space-inversion--time-reversal symmetry. Benefiting from the long lifetime of excited states of alkaline-earth-metal atoms, our work opens new possibilities for exploiting the physics related to gauge fields, such as topological phases, in the current cold-atom platform.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.110.023308

Related papers

Floquet engineering tunable periodic gauge fields and simulating real topological phases in cold alkaline-earth atom optical lattice

Wei Alex Wang, Zheng Zhang, Guixin Tang +1 more

We propose to synthesize tunable periodic gauge fields via Floquet engineering cold alkaline-earth atoms in one-dimensional optical lattice. The artificial magnetic flux is designed to emerge during the combined process of Floquet photon assisted tunneling and internal state transitions. By varying initial phases of driving protocol, our proposal presents the ability to smoothly tune the periodic flux. Moreover, we demonstrate that the effective two-leg flux ladder model can simulate one typical real topological insulator, which is described by the first Stiefel Whitney class and protected by the $PT$ symmetry. Benefiting from the long lifetime of excited states of alkaline-earth atoms, our work opens new possibilities for exploiting the physics related to gauge fields, such as topological phases, in the current cold atom platform.

arXiv:2404.12682•Apr 19, 2024•0 citations

Direct observation of chiral currents and magnetic reflection in atomic flux lattices

Fangzhao Alex An, Eric J. Meier, Bryce Gadway

The prospect of studying topological matter with the precision and control of atomic physics has driven the development of many techniques for engineering artificial magnetic fields and spin-orbit interactions. Recently, the idea of introducing nontrivial topology through the use of internal (or external) atomic states as effective "synthetic dimensions" has garnered attraction for its versatility and possible immunity from heating. We engineer tunable gauge fields through the local control of tunneling phases in an effective two-dimensional manifold of discrete atomic momentum states. We demonstrate the ability to create homogeneous gauge fields of arbitrary value, directly imaging the site-resolved dynamics of induced chiral currents. Furthermore, we engineer the first inhomogeneous artificial gauge fields for cold atoms, observing the magnetic reflection of atoms incident upon a step-like variation of an artificial vector potential. These results open new possibilities for the study of topological phases and localization phenomena in atomic gases.

arXiv:1609.09467•Science Advances•Apr 7, 2017•175 citations

A General Time-Periodic Driving Approach to Realize Topological Phases in Cold Atomic Systems

Zhongbo Yan, Bo Li, Xiaosen Yang +1 more

For time-reversal symmetric cold atomic insulating systems, it is found that the usual driving approach based on electromagnetic field used in solid state systems loses its power to drive them from trivial regimes to topological regimes if the driven systems still hold time-reversal symmetry (TRS). For such systems, we point out that simply varying the optical lattice potential periodically provides a general and effective way to drive them into topological regimes without breaking their symmetries. Based on this approach, we find that the time-reversal symmetric Kane-Mele model can be effectively driven from the trivial phase to topological phases named as Floquet Quantum Spin Hall insulator. Due to the existence of two gaps in the Floquet system, this novel state of matter can stably host one or two pair of gapless helical states on the same boundary, which suggests this state is not a simple analog of the Quantum Spin Hall insulator. This new driving approach to a system without TRS is also investigated.

arXiv:1406.5087•Scientific Reports•Nov 6, 2015•18 citations

Individually tunable tunnelling coefficients in optical lattices using local periodic driving

Georgia M. Nixon, F. Nur Ünal, Ulrich Schneider

Abstract Ultracold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as powerful quantum simulators of translationally invariant systems with many applications in e.g. strongly-correlated and topological systems. However, the ability to locally tune all Hamiltonian parameters remains an outstanding goal that would enable the simulation of a wider range of quantum phenomena. Motivated by recent advances in quantum gas microscopes and optical tweezers, we here show theoretically how local control over individual tunnelling links in an optical lattice can be achieved by incorporating local time-periodic potentials. We propose to periodically modulate the on-site energy of individual lattice sites and employ Floquet theory to demonstrate how this provides full individual control over the tunnelling amplitudes in one dimension. We provide various example configurations realising interesting topological models such as extended Su–Schrieffer–Heeger models that would be challenging to realise by other means. Extending to two dimensions, we demonstrate that local periodic driving in a Lieb lattice engineers a two-dimensional (2D) network with fully controllable tunnelling magnitudes. In a three-site plaquette, we show full simultaneous control over the relative tunnelling amplitudes and the gauge-invariant flux piercing the plaquette, providing a clear stepping stone to building a fully programmable 2D tight-binding model. We also explicitly demonstrate how utilise our technique to generate a magnetic field gradient in 2D. This local modulation scheme is applicable to many different lattice geometries.

arXiv:2309.12124•Quantum Science and Technology•Jul 31, 2024•6 citations

Atom-optically synthetic gauge fields for a noninteracting Bose gas

Yuqing Li, Jia-Hui Zhang, Yunfei Wang +7 more

Abstract Synthetic gauge fields in synthetic dimensions are now of great interest. This concept provides a convenient manner for exploring topological phases of matter. Here, we report on the first experimental realization of an atom-optically synthetic gauge field based on the synthetic momentum-state lattice of a Bose gas of 133Cs atoms, where magnetically controlled Feshbach resonance is used to tune the interacting lattice into noninteracting regime. Specifically, we engineer a noninteracting one-dimensional lattice into a two-leg ladder with tunable synthetic gauge fields. We observe the flux-dependent populations of atoms and measure the gauge field-induced chiral currents in the two legs. We also show that an inhomogeneous gauge field could control the atomic transport in the ladder. Our results lay the groundwork for using a clean noninteracting synthetic momentum-state lattice to study the gauge field-induced topological physics.

Light Science & Applications•Jan 7, 2022•44 citations

Floquet-Engineered Parity Anomaly Staircase in a Cold Atom Dirac Lattice

Binayyak Roy, Vito Scarola, Sumanta Tewari

We propose a Floquet-engineered cold atom realization of a parity anomaly inspired anomalous Hall staircase in a two dimensional $π$-flux lattice. The effective model hosts massive Dirac fermions generated by the combined action of a time reversal symmetry breaking Floquet mass and a static inversion breaking mass offset. An additional momentum dependent scalar displacement term shifts different Dirac sectors in opposite energy directions without modifying their Bloch eigenvectors. As a result, the Berry curvature contribution associated with individual massive Dirac sectors can be selectively occupied, allowing the anomalous Hall response to evolve stepwise as a function of chemical potential or scalar displacement term. Evaluating the full lattice Berry curvature integral, we find plateau-like responses near $0$, $e^2/2h$, and $e^2/h$, corresponding respectively to the activation of zero, one, and two effective massive Dirac sector contributions. We analyze the associated low energy Dirac theory, band topology, Berry curvature structure, and two parameter response maps, and discuss a possible realization using Raman-assisted tunneling, off-resonant Floquet driving, and auxiliary AC-Stark dressing in ultracold atomic optical lattices.

cond-mat.quant-gasCross-listedarXiv:2606.05164•Jun 4, 2026
We propose to synthesize tunable periodic gauge fields via Floquet engineering cold-alkaline-earth-metal atoms in one-dimensional optical lattice. The artificial magnetic flux is designed to emerge during the combined process of Floquet photon-assisted tunneling and internal state transitions. By varying the initial phases of the driving protocol, our proposal presents the ability to smoothly tune the periodic flux. Moreover, we demonstrate that the effective two-leg flux ladder model can simulate one typical real topological insulator, which is described by the first Stiefel-Whitney class and protected by the space-inversion--time-reversal symmetry. Benefiting from the long lifetime of excited states of alkaline-earth-metal atoms, our work opens new possibilities for exploiting the physics related to gauge fields, such as topological phases, in the current cold-atom platform.
We propose to synthesize tunable periodic gauge fields via Floquet engineering cold alkaline-earth atoms in one-dimensional optical lattice. The artificial magnetic flux is designed to emerge during the combined process of Floquet photon assisted tunneling and internal state transitions. By varying initial phases of driving protocol, our proposal presents the ability to smoothly tune the periodic flux. Moreover, we demonstrate that the effective two-leg flux ladder model can simulate one typical real topological insulator, which is described by the first Stiefel Whitney class and protected by the PTPTPT symmetry. Benefiting from the long lifetime of excited states of alkaline-earth atoms, our work opens new possibilities for exploiting the physics related to gauge fields, such as topological phases, in the current cold atom platform.
The prospect of studying topological matter with the precision and control of atomic physics has driven the development of many techniques for engineering artificial magnetic fields and spin-orbit interactions. Recently, the idea of introducing nontrivial topology through the use of internal (or external) atomic states as effective "synthetic dimensions" has garnered attraction for its versatility and possible immunity from heating. We engineer tunable gauge fields through the local control of tunneling phases in an effective two-dimensional manifold of discrete atomic momentum states. We demonstrate the ability to create homogeneous gauge fields of arbitrary value, directly imaging the site-resolved dynamics of induced chiral currents. Furthermore, we engineer the first inhomogeneous artificial gauge fields for cold atoms, observing the magnetic reflection of atoms incident upon a step-like variation of an artificial vector potential. These results open new possibilities for the study of topological phases and localization phenomena in atomic gases.
For time-reversal symmetric cold atomic insulating systems, it is found that the usual driving approach based on electromagnetic field used in solid state systems loses its power to drive them from trivial regimes to topological regimes if the driven systems still hold time-reversal symmetry (TRS). For such systems, we point out that simply varying the optical lattice potential periodically provides a general and effective way to drive them into topological regimes without breaking their symmetries. Based on this approach, we find that the time-reversal symmetric Kane-Mele model can be effectively driven from the trivial phase to topological phases named as Floquet Quantum Spin Hall insulator. Due to the existence of two gaps in the Floquet system, this novel state of matter can stably host one or two pair of gapless helical states on the same boundary, which suggests this state is not a simple analog of the Quantum Spin Hall insulator. This new driving approach to a system without TRS is also investigated.
Abstract Ultracold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as powerful quantum simulators of translationally invariant systems with many applications in e.g. strongly-correlated and topological systems. However, the ability to locally tune all Hamiltonian parameters remains an outstanding goal that would enable the simulation of a wider range of quantum phenomena. Motivated by recent advances in quantum gas microscopes and optical tweezers, we here show theoretically how local control over individual tunnelling links in an optical lattice can be achieved by incorporating local time-periodic potentials. We propose to periodically modulate the on-site energy of individual lattice sites and employ Floquet theory to demonstrate how this provides full individual control over the tunnelling amplitudes in one dimension. We provide various example configurations realising interesting topological models such as extended Su–Schrieffer–Heeger models that would be challenging to realise by other means. Extending to two dimensions, we demonstrate that local periodic driving in a Lieb lattice engineers a two-dimensional (2D) network with fully controllable tunnelling magnitudes. In a three-site plaquette, we show full simultaneous control over the relative tunnelling amplitudes and the gauge-invariant flux piercing the plaquette, providing a clear stepping stone to building a fully programmable 2D tight-binding model. We also explicitly demonstrate how utilise our technique to generate a magnetic field gradient in 2D. This local modulation scheme is applicable to many different lattice geometries.
Abstract Synthetic gauge fields in synthetic dimensions are now of great interest. This concept provides a convenient manner for exploring topological phases of matter. Here, we report on the first experimental realization of an atom-optically synthetic gauge field based on the synthetic momentum-state lattice of a Bose gas of 133Cs atoms, where magnetically controlled Feshbach resonance is used to tune the interacting lattice into noninteracting regime. Specifically, we engineer a noninteracting one-dimensional lattice into a two-leg ladder with tunable synthetic gauge fields. We observe the flux-dependent populations of atoms and measure the gauge field-induced chiral currents in the two legs. We also show that an inhomogeneous gauge field could control the atomic transport in the ladder. Our results lay the groundwork for using a clean noninteracting synthetic momentum-state lattice to study the gauge field-induced topological physics.
We propose a Floquet-engineered cold atom realization of a parity anomaly inspired anomalous Hall staircase in a two dimensional πππ-flux lattice. The effective model hosts massive Dirac fermions generated by the combined action of a time reversal symmetry breaking Floquet mass and a static inversion breaking mass offset. An additional momentum dependent scalar displacement term shifts different Dirac sectors in opposite energy directions without modifying their Bloch eigenvectors. As a result, the Berry curvature contribution associated with individual massive Dirac sectors can be selectively occupied, allowing the anomalous Hall response to evolve stepwise as a function of chemical potential or scalar displacement term. Evaluating the full lattice Berry curvature integral, we find plateau-like responses near 000, e2/2he^2/2he2/2h, and e2/he^2/he2/h, corresponding respectively to the activation of zero, one, and two effective massive Dirac sector contributions. We analyze the associated low energy Dirac theory, band topology, Berry curvature structure, and two parameter response maps, and discuss a possible realization using Raman-assisted tunneling, off-resonant Floquet driving, and auxiliary AC-Stark dressing in ultracold atomic optical lattices.