No Arabic abstract
We study harmonically trapped, unpolarized fermion systems with attractive interactions in two spatial dimensions with spin degeneracies Nf = 2 and 4 and N/Nf = 1, 3, 5, and 7 particles per flavor. We carry out our calculations using our recently proposed quantum Monte Carlo method on a nonuniform lattice. We report on the ground-state energy and contact for a range of couplings, as determined by the binding energy of the two-body system, and show explicitly how the physics of the Nf-body sector dominates as the coupling is increased.
We calculate the finite-temperature Tans contact for N SU(2) fermions, characterized by repulsive contact interaction, trapped in a 1D harmonic confinement within a local density approximation on top of a thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz. The Tans contact for such a system, as in the homogeneous case, displays a minimum at a very low temperature. By means of an exact canonical ensemble calculation for two fermions, we provide an explicit formula for the contact at very low temperatures that reveals that the minimum is due to the mixing of states with different exchange symmetries. In the unitary regime, this symmetry blending corresponds to a maximal entanglement entropy.
We study a harmonically confined Bose-Bose mixture using quantum Monte Carlo methods. Our results for the density profiles are systematically compared with mean-field predictions derived through the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the same conditions. The phase space as a function of the interaction strengths and the relation between masses is quite rich. The miscibility criterion for the homogeneous system applies rather well to the system, with some discrepancies close to the critical line for separation. We observe significant differences between the mean-field results and the Monte Carlo ones, that magnify when the asymmetry between masses increases. In the analyzed interaction regime, we observe universality of our results which extend beyond the applicability regime for the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
We present in detail two variants of the lattice Monte Carlo method aimed at tackling systems in external trapping potentials: a uniform-lattice approach with hard-wall boundary conditions, and a non-uniform Gauss-Hermite lattice approach. Using those two methods, we compute the ground-state energy and spatial density profile for systems of N=4 - 8 harmonically trapped fermions in one dimension. From the favorable comparison of both energies and density profiles (particularly in regions of low density), we conclude that the trapping potential is properly resolved by the hard-wall basis. Our work paves the way to higher dimensions and finite temperature analyses, as calculations with the hard-wall basis can be accelerated via fast Fourier transforms, the cost of unaccelerated methods is otherwise prohibitive due to the unfavorable scaling with system size.
Using ultracold alkaline-earth atoms in optical lattices, we construct a quantum simulator for U(N) and SU(N) lattice gauge theories with fermionic matter based on quantum link models. These systems share qualitative features with QCD, including chiral symmetry breaking and restoration at non-zero temperature or baryon density. Unlike classical simulations, a quantum simulator does not suffer from sign problems and can address the corresponding chiral dynamics in real time.
A large repulsion between particles in a quantum system can lead to their localization, as it happens for the electrons in Mott insulating materials. This paradigm has recently branched out into a new quantum state, the orbital-selective Mott insulator, where electrons in some orbitals are predicted to localize, while others remain itinerant. We provide a direct experimental realization of this phenomenon, that we extend to a more general flavour-selective localization. By using an atom-based quantum simulator, we engineer SU(3) Fermi-Hubbard models breaking their symmetry via a tunable coupling between flavours, observing an enhancement of localization and the emergence of flavour-dependent correlations. Our realization of flavour-selective Mott physics opens the path to the quantum simulation of multicomponent materials, from superconductors to topological insulators.