No Arabic abstract
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.
Understanding the magnetic response of the normal state of the cuprates is considered a key piece in solving the puzzle of their high-temperature superconductivity. The essential physics of these materials is believed to be captured by the Fermi-Hubbard model, a minimal model that has been realized with cold atoms in optical lattices. Here we report on site-resolved measurements of the Fermi-Hubbard model in a spin-imbalanced atomic gas, allowing us to explore the response of the system to large effective magnetic fields. We observe short-range canted antiferromagnetism at half-filling with stronger spin correlations in the direction orthogonal to the magnetization, in contrast with the spin-balanced case where identical correlations are measured for any projection of the pseudospin. The rotational anisotropy of the spin correlators is found to increase with polarization and with distance between the spins. Away from half-filling, the polarization of the gas exhibits non-monotonic behavior with doping for strong interactions, resembling the behavior of the magnetic susceptibility in the cuprates. We compare our measurements to predictions from Determinantal Quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) and Numerical Linked Cluster Expansion (NLCE) algorithms and find good agreement. Calculations on the doped system are near the limits of these techniques, illustrating the value of cold atom quantum simulations for studying strongly-correlated materials.
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.
The exchange coupling between quantum mechanical spins lies at the origin of quantum magnetism. We report on the observation of nearest-neighbor magnetic spin correlations emerging in the many-body state of a thermalized Fermi gas in an optical lattice. The key to obtaining short-range magnetic order is a local redistribution of entropy within the lattice structure. This is achieved in a tunable-geometry optical lattice, which also enables the detection of the magnetic correlations. We load a low-temperature two-component Fermi gas with repulsive interactions into either a dimerized or an anisotropic simple cubic lattice. For both systems the correlations manifest as an excess number of singlets as compared to triplets consisting of two atoms with opposite spins. For the anisotropic lattice, we determine the transverse spin correlator from the singlet-triplet imbalance and observe antiferromagnetic correlations along one spatial axis. Our work paves the way for addressing open problems in quantum magnetism using ultracold fermions in optical lattices as quantum simulators.
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.
With topologcial semimetal developing, semimetal with nodal-line ring comes into peoples vision as a powerful candidate for practical application of topological devices. We propose a method using ultracold atoms in two-dimensional amplitude-shaken bipartite hexagonal optical lattice to simulate nodal-line semimetal, which can be achieved in experiment by attaching one triangular optical lattice to a hexangonal optical lattice and periodically modulating the intensity and position of the triangular lattice. By amplitude shaking, a time-reversal-symmetry-unstable mode is introduced into the bipartite optical lattice, and then the nodal-line semimetal is gotten by adjusting the proportion of such mode and the trivial mode of hexagonal lattice. Through calculating the energy spectrum of effective Hamiltonian, the transformation from Dirac semimetal to nodal-line semimetal in pace with changing shaking parameters is observed. We also study the change of Berry curvature and Berry phase in the transformation, which provides guidance on measuring the transformation in experiment. By analyzing the symmetry of the system, the emergence of the time-reversal-symmetry-unstable mode is researched. This proposal provides a way to research the pure nodal-line semimetal without the influence of other bands, which may contribute to the study of those unique features of surface states and bulk states of nodal-line semimetal.