No Arabic abstract
We report the experimental implementation of discrete-time topological quantum walks of a Bose-Einstein condensate in momentum space. Introducing stroboscopic driving sequences to the generation of a momentum lattice, we show that the dynamics of atoms along the lattice is effectively governed by a periodically driven Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, which is equivalent to a discrete-time topological quantum walk. We directly measure the underlying topological invariants through time-averaged mean chiral displacements, which are consistent with our experimental observation of topological phase transitions. We then observe interaction-induced localization in the quantum-walk dynamics, where atoms tend to populate a single momentum-lattice site under interactions that are non-local in momentum space. Our experiment opens up the avenue of investigating discrete-time topological quantum walks using cold atoms, where the many-body environment and tunable interactions offer exciting new possibilities.
Synthetic spin-tensor-momentum coupling has recently been proposed to realize in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. Here we study bright solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates with spin-tensor-momentum coupling and spin-orbit coupling. The properties and dynamics of spin-tensor-momentum-coupled and spin-orbit-coupled bright solitons are identified to be different. We contribute the difference to the different symmetries.
By applying a position-dependent detuning to a spin-orbit-coupled Hamiltonian with equal Rashba and Dresselhaus coupling, we exploit the behavior of the angular momentum of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensed atomic gas and discuss the distinctive role of its canonical and spin components. By developing the formalism of spinor hydrodynamics we predict the precession of the dipole oscillation caused by the synthetic rotational field, in analogy with the precession of the Foucault pendulum, the excitation of the scissors mode, following the sudden switching off of the detuning, and the occurrence of Hall-like effects. When the detuning exceeds a critical value we observe a transition from a vortex free, rigidly rotating quantum gas to a gas containing vortices with negative circulation which results in a significant reduction of the total angular momentum.
We realized a quantum geometric charge pump for a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the lowest Bloch band of a novel bipartite magnetic lattice. Topological charge pumps in filled bands yield quantized pumping set by the global -- topological -- properties of the bands. In contrast, our geometric charge pump for a BEC occupying just a single crystal momentum state exhibits non-quantized charge pumping set by local -- geometrical -- properties of the band structure. Like topological charge pumps, for each pump cycle we observed an overall displacement (here, not quantized) and a temporal modulation of the atomic wavepackets position in each unit cell, i.e., the polarization.
We have measured the quantum depletion of an interacting homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate, and confirmed the 70-year old theory of N.N. Bogoliubov. The observed condensate depletion is reversibly tuneable by changing the strength of the interparticle interactions. Our atomic homogeneous condensate is produced in an optical-box trap, the interactions are tuned via a magnetic Feshbach resonance, and the condensed fraction probed by coherent two-photon Bragg scattering.
Mobile impurities in a Bose-Einstein condensate form quasiparticles called polarons. Here, we show that two such polarons can bind to form a bound bipolaron state. Its emergence is caused by an induced nonlocal interaction mediated by density oscillations in the condensate, and we derive using field theory an effective Schrodinger equation describing this for arbitrarily strong impurity-boson interaction. We furthermore compare with Quantum Monte Carlo simulations finding remarkable agreement, which underlines the predictive power of the developed theory. It is found that bipolaron formation typically requires strong impurity interactions beyond the validity of more commonly used weak-coupling approaches that lead to local Yukawa-type interactions. We predict that the bipolarons are observable in present experiments and describe a procedure to probe their properties.