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Physical Review A

Floquet scattering resonances in two dimensions

Cai-Xia Zhang, Shi-Guo Peng, Guo-Qing Zhang, Hui Yan

Published Feb 26, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this work we establish a general scattering theory for two-dimensional quantum systems with periodically modulated interactions. We show that scattering quantities, such as the scattering cross section, effective scattering length, and effective-range parameter, can be defined in a manner analogous to conventional scattering theory, even in the presence of modulation. Unlike systems with static interactions, the incident wave in our setup can be scattered inelastically into different Floquet channels, absorbing or emitting quanta from the modulation field. A family of Floquet resonances is identified, at which universal recurrence relations are derived for the Floquet scattering amplitudes. These relations are equivalent to a discrete Schr\"odinger equation describing a pointlike source trapped by an effective potential. The resonance mechanism is explained as the coincidence of the point source's energy with the bound states of the effective potential. We discuss the scattering properties both at and near the resonances, finding that the resonance width and the ratio of the inelastic to elastic cross sections can be effectively controlled through the modulation of the interaction. Our results provide a pathway to precisely manipulate many-body interactions in periodically driven quantum systems.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.023328

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In this work we establish a general scattering theory for two-dimensional quantum systems with periodically modulated interactions. We show that scattering quantities, such as the scattering cross section, effective scattering length, and effective-range parameter, can be defined in a manner analogous to conventional scattering theory, even in the presence of modulation. Unlike systems with static interactions, the incident wave in our setup can be scattered inelastically into different Floquet channels, absorbing or emitting quanta from the modulation field. A family of Floquet resonances is identified, at which universal recurrence relations are derived for the Floquet scattering amplitudes. These relations are equivalent to a discrete Schr"odinger equation describing a pointlike source trapped by an effective potential. The resonance mechanism is explained as the coincidence of the point source's energy with the bound states of the effective potential. We discuss the scattering properties both at and near the resonances, finding that the resonance width and the ratio of the inelastic to elastic cross sections can be effectively controlled through the modulation of the interaction. Our results provide a pathway to precisely manipulate many-body interactions in periodically driven quantum systems.
It is demonstrated that the effective scattering length can be highly manipulated via time-periodic driving of a short-range interparticle potential. By developing a Floquet-scattering theory we show that sharp Floquet resonances occur at which the effective interaction can be tuned to very large attractive or repulsive values. The resulting s-wave scattering length can be obtained in analytic form and the shape of these resonances is given by a simple formula describing how resonance position and width can be altered by the driving strength. Our approach allows the identification of the underlying physical mechanism of the scattering resonances as Floquet bound states with positive energies, which are dynamically created by the drive. This insight is valuable for a detailed analysis and uncovers a general resource for enhanced or reduced scattering in Floquet systems, as was recently confirmed experimentally.
Motivated by recent experimental implementations of artificial gauge fields for gases of cold atoms, we study the scattering properties of particles that are subjected to time-periodic Hamiltonians. Making use of Floquet theory, we focus on translationally invariant situations in which the single-particle dynamics can be described in terms of spatially extended Floquet-Bloch waves. We develop a general formalism for the scattering of these Floquet-Bloch waves. An important role is played by the conservation of Floquet quasienergy, which is defined only up to the addition of integer multiples of $\ensuremath{\hbar}\ensuremath{\omega}$ for a Hamiltonian with period $T=2\ensuremath{\pi}/\ensuremath{\omega}$. We discuss the consequences of this for the interpretation of ``elastic'' and ``inelastic'' scattering in cases of physical interest. We illustrate our general results with applications to the scattering of a single particle in a Floquet-Bloch state from a static potential and the scattering of two bosonic particles in Floquet-Bloch states through their interparticle interaction. We analyze examples of these scattering processes that are closely related to the schemes used to generate artificial gauge fields in cold-atom experiments, through optical dressing of internal states, or through time-periodic modulations of tight-binding lattices. We show that the effects of scattering cannot, in general, be understood by an effective time-independent Hamiltonian, even in the limit $\ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ of rapid modulation. We discuss the relative sizes of the elastic scattering (required to stabilize many-body phases) and of the inelastic scattering (leading to deleterious heating effects). In particular, we describe how inelastic processes that can cause significant heating in the current experimental setup can be switched off by additional confinement of transverse motion.
We investigate the Floquet spectrum and excitation properties of a two-ultracold-atom system with periodically driven interaction in a three-dimensional harmonic trap. The interaction between the atoms is changed by varying the s-wave scattering length in two ways, the cosine and the square-wave modulations. It is found that as the driving frequency increases, the Floquet spectrum exhibits two main features for both modulations, the accumulating and the spreading of the quasienergy levels, which further lead to different dynamical behaviors. The accumulation is associated with collective excitations and the persistent growth of the energy, while the spread indicates that the energy is bounded at all times. The initial scattering length, the driving frequency and amplitude can all significantly change the Floquet spectrum as well as the dynamics. However, the corresponding relation between them is valid universally. Finally, we propose a mechanism for selectively exciting the system to one specific state by using the avoided crossing of two quasienergy levels, which could guide preparation of a desired state in experiments.
In systems of ultracold atoms, pairwise interactions are resonantly enhanced by the application of an oscillating magnetic field that is parallel to the spin-quantization axis of the atoms. The resonance occurs when the frequency of the applied field is precisely tuned near the transition frequency between the scattering atoms and a diatomic molecule. The resulting cross section can be made more than two orders of magnitude larger than the cross section in the absence of the oscillating field. The low momentum resonance properties have a universal description that is independent of the atomic species. To arrive at these conclusions, we first develop a formal extension of Floquet theory to describe scattering of atoms with time-periodic, short-range interaction potentials. We then calculate the atomic scattering properties by modeling the atomic interactions with a square well potential with oscillating depth and then explicitly solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation. We then apply the Floquet formalism to the case of atoms scattering with a contact interaction described by a time-periodic scattering length, obtaining analytic results that agree with those obtained by solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation.
We study the two-body scattering problem in the zero-range approximation with a sinusoidally driven scattering length and calculate the relation between the mean value and amplitude of the drive for which the effective scattering amplitude is resonantly enhanced. In this manner we arrive at a family of curves along which the effective scattering length diverges but the nature of the corresponding Floquet-induced resonance changes from narrow to wide. Remarkably, on these curves the driving does not induce heating. To study the effect of these resonances on the three-body problem we consider one light and two heavy particles with driven heavy-light interaction in the Born--Oppenheimer approximation and find that the Floquet driving can be used to tune the three-body and inelasticity parameters.
We solve the two-particle s-wave scattering for an ultracold-atom gas confined in a quasi-one-dimensional trapping potential which is periodically modulated. The interaction between the atoms is included via Fermi's pseudopotential. For a modulated isotropic transverse harmonic confinement, the atomic center of mass and relative degrees of freedom decouple and an exact solution is possible. The modulation opens additional photon-assisted resonant scattering channels. Applying the Bethe-Peierls boundary condition, we obtain the general scattering solution of the time-dependent Floquet-Schrödinger equation which is universal at low energies. The effective one-dimensional scattering length can be controlled by the external driving.