No Arabic abstract
Artificial gauge fields open new possibilities to realize quantum many-body systems with ultracold atoms, by engineering Hamiltonians usually associated with electronic systems. In the presence of a periodic potential, artificial gauge fields may bring ultracold atoms closer to the quantum Hall regime. Here, we describe a one-dimensional lattice derived purely from effective Zeeman-shifts resulting from a combination of Raman coupling and radiofrequency magnetic fields. In this lattice, the tunneling matrix element is generally complex. We control both the amplitude and the phase of this tunneling parameter, experimentally realizing the Peierls substitution for ultracold neutral atoms.
We present two independent calculations of the tight-binding parameters for a specific realization of the Haldane model with ultracold atoms. The tunneling coefficients up to next-to-nearest neighbors are computed ab-initio by using the maximally localized Wannier functions, and compared to analytical expressions written in terms of gauge invariant, measurable properties of the spectrum. The two approaches present a remarkable agreement and evidence the breakdown of the Peierls substitution: (i) the phase acquired by the next-to-nearest tunneling amplitude $t_{1}$ presents quantitative and qualitative differences with respect to that obtained by the integral of the vector field A, as considered in the Peierls substitution, even in the regime of low amplitudes of A; (ii) for larger values, also $|t_{1}|$ and the nearest-neighbor tunneling $t_{0}$ have a marked dependence on A. The origin of this behavior and its implications are discussed.
Quantised sound waves -- phonons -- govern the elastic response of crystalline materials, and also play an integral part in determining their thermodynamic properties and electrical response (e.g., by binding electrons into superconducting Cooper pairs). The physics of lattice phonons and elasticity is absent in simulators of quantum solids constructed of neutral atoms in periodic light potentials: unlike real solids, traditional optical lattices are silent because they are infinitely stiff. Optical-lattice realisations of crystals therefore lack some of the central dynamical degrees of freedom that determine the low-temperature properties of real materials. Here, we create an optical lattice with phonon modes using a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) coupled to a confocal optical resonator. Playing the role of an active quantum gas microscope, the multimode cavity QED system both images the phonons and induces the crystallisation that supports phonons via short-range, photon-mediated atom-atom interactions. Dynamical susceptibility measurements reveal the phonon dispersion relation, showing that these collective excitations exhibit a sound speed dependent on the BEC-photon coupling strength. Our results pave the way for exploring the rich physics of elasticity in quantum solids, ranging from quantum melting transitions to exotic fractonic topological defects in the quantum regime.
Engineered spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in cold atom systems can aid in the study of novel synthetic materials and complex condensed matter phenomena. Despite great advances, alkali atom SOC systems are hindered by heating from spontaneous emission, which limits the observation of many-body effects, motivating research into potential alternatives. Here we demonstrate that SOC can be engineered to occur naturally in a one-dimensional fermionic 87Sr optical lattice clock (OLC). In contrast to previous SOC experiments, in this work the SOC is both generated and probed using a direct ultra-narrow optical clock transition between two electronic orbital states. We use clock spectroscopy to prepare lattice band populations, internal electronic states, and quasimomenta, as well as to produce SOC dynamics. The exceptionally long lifetime of the excited clock state (160 s) eliminates decoherence and atom loss from spontaneous emission at all relevant experimental timescales, allowing subsequent momentum- and spin-resolved in situ probing of the SOC band structure and eigenstates. We utilize these capabilities to study Bloch oscillations, spin-momentum locking, and Van Hove singularities in the transition density of states. Our results lay the groundwork for the use of OLCs to probe novel SOC phases of matter.
Turbulence is an intriguing non-equilibrium state, which originates from fluid mechanics and has far-reaching consequences in the description of climate physics, the characterization of quantum hydrodynamics, and the understanding of cosmic evolution. The concept of turbulent cascade describing the energy redistribution across different length scales offers one profound route to reconcile fundamental conservative forces with observational energy non-conservation of accelerating expansion of the universe bypassing the cosmological constant. Here, we observe a dimension crossing turbulent energy cascade in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a two-dimensional (2d) optical lattice forming a 2d array of tubes, which exhibits universal behaviors in the dynamical energy-redistribution across different dimensions. By exciting atoms into the optical-lattice high bands, the excessive energy of this quantum many-body system is found to cascade from the transverse two-dimensional lattice directions to the continuous dimension, giving rise to a one-dimensional turbulent energy cascade, which is in general challenging to reach due to integrability. We expect this observed novel phenomenon of dimension-crossing energy cascade may inspire microscopic theories for modeling positive cosmological constant of our inflationary universe.
Ultracold polar molecules provide an excellent platform to study quantum many-body spin dynamics, which has become accessible in the recently realized low entropy quantum gas of polar molecules in an optical lattice. To obtain a detailed understanding for the molecular formation process in the lattice, we prepare a density distribution where lattice sites are either empty or occupied by a doublon composed of a bosonic atom interacting with a fermionic atom. By letting this disordered, out-of-equilibrium system evolve from a well-defined initial condition, we observe clear effects on pairing that arise from inter-species interactions, a higher partial wave Feshbach resonance, and excited Bloch-band population. When only the lighter fermions are allowed to tunnel in the three-dimensional (3D) lattice, the system dynamics can be well described by theory. However, in a regime where both fermions and bosons can tunnel, we encounter correlated dynamics that is beyond the current capability of numerical simulations. Furthermore, we show that we can probe the microscopic distribution of the atomic gases in the lattice by measuring the inelastic loss of doublons. These techniques realize tools that are generically applicable to heteronuclear diatomic systems in optical lattices and can shed light on molecule production as well as dynamics of a Bose-Fermi mixture.