No Arabic abstract
Quantum gas microscopes are a promising tool to study interacting quantum many-body systems and bridge the gap between theoretical models and real materials. So far they were limited to measurements of instantaneous correlation functions of the form $langle hat{O}(t) rangle$, even though extensions to frequency-resolved response functions $langle hat{O}(t) hat{O}(0) rangle$ would provide important information about the elementary excitations in a many-body system. For example, single particle spectral functions, which are usually measured using photoemission experiments in electron systems, contain direct information about fractionalization and the quasiparticle excitation spectrum. Here, we propose a measurement scheme to experimentally access the momentum and energy resolved spectral function in a quantum gas microscope with currently available techniques. As an example for possible applications, we numerically calculate the spectrum of a single hole excitation in one-dimensional $t-J$ models with isotropic and anisotropic antiferromagnetic couplings. A sharp asymmetry in the distribution of spectral weight appears when a hole is created in an isotropic Heisenberg spin chain. This effect slowly vanishes for anisotropic spin interactions and disappears completely in the case of pure Ising interactions. The asymmetry strongly depends on the total magnetization of the spin chain, which can be tuned in experiments with quantum gas microscopes. An intuitive picture for the observed behavior is provided by a slave-fermion mean field theory. The key properties of the spectra are visible at currently accessible temperatures.
Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measures the single-particle excitations of a many-body quantum system with both energy and momentum resolution, providing detailed information about strongly interacting materials. ARPES is a direct probe of fermion pairing, and hence a natural technique to study the development of superconductivity in a variety of experimental systems ranging from high temperature superconductors to unitary Fermi gases. In these systems a remnant gap-like feature persists in the normal state, which is referred to as a pseudogap. A quantitative understanding of pseudogap regimes may elucidate details about the pairing mechanisms that lead to superconductivity, but developing this is difficult in real materials partly because the microscopic Hamiltonian is not known. Here we report on the development of ARPES to study strongly interacting fermions in an optical lattice using a quantum gas microscope. We benchmark the technique by measuring the occupied single-particle spectral function of an attractive Fermi-Hubbard system across the BCS-BEC crossover and comparing to quantum Monte Carlo calculations. We find evidence for a pseudogap in our system that opens well above the expected critical temperature for superfluidity. This technique may also be applied to the doped repulsive Hubbard model which is expected to exhibit a pseudogap at temperatures close to those achieved in recent experiments.
We report high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) studies of the electronic structure of BaFe$_2$As$_2$, which is one of the parent compounds of the Fe-pnictide superconductors. ARPES measurements have been performed at 20 K and 300 K, corresponding to the orthorhombic antiferromagnetic phase and the tetragonal paramagnetic phase, respectively. Photon energies between 30 and 175 eV and polarizations parallel and perpendicular to the scattering plane have been used. Measurements of the Fermi surface yield two hole pockets at the $Gamma$-point and an electron pocket at each of the X-points. The topology of the pockets has been concluded from the dispersion of the spectral weight as a function of binding energy. Changes in the spectral weight at the Fermi level upon variation of the polarization of the incident photons yield important information on the orbital character of the states near the Fermi level. No differences in the electronic structure between 20 and 300 K could be resolved. The results are compared with density functional theory band structure calculations for the tetragonal paramagnetic phase.
Topological insulators are a new phase of matter that exhibits exotic surface electronic properties. Determining the spin texture of this class of material is of paramount importance for both fundamental understanding of its topological order and future spin-based applications. In this article, we review the recent experimental and theoretical studies on the differential coupling of left- versus right-circularly polarized light to the topological surface states in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. These studies have shown that the polarization of light and the experimental geometry plays a very important role in both photocurrent intensity and spin polarization of photoelectrons emitted from the topological surface states. A general photoemission matrix element calculation with spin-orbit coupling can quantitatively explain the observations and is also applicable to topologically trivial systems. These experimental and theoretical investigations suggest that optical excitation with circularly polarized light is a promising route towards mapping the spin-orbit texture and manipulating the spin orientation in topological and other spin-orbit coupled materials.
25 years after discovery of high-temperature superconductivity (HTSC) in La$_{2-x}$Ba$_x$CuO$_4$ (LBCO), the HTSC continues to pose some of the biggest challenges in materials science. Cuprates are fundamentally different from conventional superconductors in that the metallic conductivity and superconductivity are induced by doping carriers into an antiferromagnetically ordered correlated insulator. In such systems, the normal state is expected to be quite different from a Landau-Fermi liquid - the basis for the conventional BCS theory of superconductivity. The situation is additionally complicated by the fact that cuprates are susceptible to charge/spin ordering tendencies, especially in the low-doping regime. The role of such tendencies on the phenomenon of superconductivity is still not completely clear. Here, we present studies of the electronic structure in cuprates where the superconductivity is strongly suppressed as static spin and charge orders or stripes develop near the doping level of $x =1/8$ and outside of the superconducting dome, for $x<0.055$. We discuss the relationship between the stripes, superconductivity, pseudogap and the observed electronic excitations in these materials.
We have performed high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on the optimally-doped Ba$_{0.6}$K$_{0.4}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ compound and determined the accurate momentum dependence of the superconducting (SC) gap in four Fermi-surface sheets including a newly discovered outer electron pocket at the M point. The SC gap on this pocket is nearly isotropic and its magnitude is comparable ($Delta$ $sim$ 11 meV) to that of the inner electron and hole pockets ($sim$12 meV), although it is substantially larger than that of the outer hole pocket ($sim$6 meV). The Fermi-surface dependence of the SC gap value is basically consistent with $Delta$($k$) = $Delta$$_0$cos$k_x$cos$k_y$ formula expected for the extended s-wave symmetry. The observed finite deviation from the simple formula suggests the importance of multi-orbital effects.