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Register a new userSpin-orbit coupled fermions in an optical lattice clock
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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.
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We demonstrate a novel way of synthesizing spin-orbit interactions in ultracold quantum gases, based on a single-photon optical clock transition coupling two long-lived electronic states of two-electron $^{173}$Yb atoms. By mapping the electronic states onto effective sites along a synthetic electronic dimension, we have engineered synthetic fermionic ladders with tunable magnetic fluxes. We have detected the spin-orbit coupling with fiber-link-enhanced clock spectroscopy and directly measured the emergence of chiral edge currents, probing them as a function of the magnetic field flux. These results open new directions for the investigation of topological states of matter with ultracold atomic gases.
We propose the use of optical lattice clocks operated with fermionic alkaline-earth-atoms to study spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in interacting many-body systems. The SOC emerges naturally during the clock interrogation when atoms are allowed to tunnel and accumulate a phase set by the ratio of the magic lattice wavelength to the clock transition wavelength. We demonstrate how standard protocols such as Rabi and Ramsey spectroscopy, that take advantage of the sub-Hertz resolution of state-of-the-art clock lasers, can perform momentum-resolved band tomography and determine SOC-induced $s$-wave collisions in nuclear spin polarized fermions. By adding a second counter-propagating clock beam a sliding superlattice can be implemented and used for controlled atom transport and as a probe of $p$ and $s$-wave interactions. The proposed spectroscopic probes provide clean and well-resolved signatures at current clock operating temperatures.
Recent experimental realization of one-dimensional (1D) spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for ultracold alkaline-earth(-like) atoms in optical lattice clocks opens a new avenue for exploring exotic quantum matter because of the strongly suppressed heating of atoms from lasers comparing with alkaline atoms. Here we propose a scheme to realize two-dimensional (2D) Rashba and three-dimensional (3D) Weyl types of SOC in a 3D optical lattice clock and explore their topological phases. With 3D Weyl SOC, the system can support topological phases with various numbers as well as types (I or II) of Weyl points. The spin textures of such topological bands for 2D Rashba and 3D Weyl SOC can be detected using suitably designed spectroscopic sequences. Our proposal may pave the way for the experimental realization of robust topological quantum matters and their exotic quasiparticle excitations in ultracold atomic gases.
Observation of topological phases beyond two-dimension (2D) has been an open challenge for ultracold atoms. Here, we realize for the first time a 3D spin-orbit coupled nodal-line semimetal in an optical lattice and observe the bulk line nodes with ultracold fermions. The realized topological semimetal exhibits an emergent magnetic group symmetry. This allows to detect the nodal lines by effectively reconstructing the 3D topological band from a series of measurements of integrated spin textures, which precisely render spin textures on the parameter-tuned magnetic-group-symmetric planes. The detection technique can be generally applied to explore 3D topological states of similar symmetries. Furthermore, we observe the band inversion lines from topological quench dynamics, which are bulk counterparts of Fermi arc states and connect the Dirac points, reconfirming the realized topological band. Our results demonstrate the first approach to effectively observe 3D band topology, and open the way to probe exotic topological physics for ultracold atoms in high dimensions.
Time evolution of spin-orbit-coupled cold atoms in an optical lattice is studied, with a two-band energy spectrum having two avoided crossings. A force is applied such that the atoms experience two consecutive Landau-Zener tunnelings while transversing the avoided crossings. Stuckelberg interference arises from the phase accumulated during the adiabatic evolution between the two tunnelings. This phase is gauge field-dependent and thus provides new opportunities to measure the synthetic gauge field, which is verified via calculation of spin transition probabilities after a double passage process. Time-dependent and time-averaged spin probabilities are derived, in which resonances are found. We also demonstrate chiral Bloch oscillation and rich spin-momentum locking behavior in this system.
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