No Arabic abstract
We propose an innovative quantum emulator based on Moire superlattices showing that, by employing periodical modulation on each lattice site, one can create tunable, artificial gauge fields with imprinting Peierls phases on the hopping parameters and realize an analog of novel Haldane-like phase. As an application, we provide a methodology to directly quantify the topological invariant in such a system from a dynamical quench process. This design shows a robustly integrated platform which opens a new door to investigate topological physics.
We propose an experimental scheme to realize the valley-dependent gauge fields for ultracold fermionic atoms trapped in a state-dependent square optical lattice. Our scheme relies on two sets of Raman laser beams to engineer the hopping between adjacent sites populated by two-component fermionic atoms. One set of Raman beams are used to realize a staggered pi-flux lattice, where low energy atoms near two inequivalent Dirac points should be described by the Dirac equation for spin-1/2 particles. Another set of laser beams with proper Rabi frequencies are added to further modulate the atomic hopping parameters. The hopping modulation will give rise to effective gauge potentials with opposite signs near the two valleys, mimicking the interesting strain-induced pseudo-gauge fields in graphene. The proposed valley-dependent gauge fields are tunable and provide a new route to realize quantum valley Hall effects and atomic valleytronics.
This article is a report of Projet bibliographique of M1 at Ecole Normale Superieure. In this article we reviewed the historical developments in artificial gauge fields and spin-orbit couplings in cold atom systems. We resorted to origins of literatures to trace the ideas of the developments. For pedagogical purposes, we tried to work out examples carefully and clearly, to verified the validity of various approximations and arguments in detail, and to give clear physical and mathematical pictures of the problems that we discussed. The first part of this article introduced the fundamental concepts of Berry phase and Jaynes-Cummings model. The second part reviewed two schemes to generate artificial gauge fields with N-pod scheme in cold atom systems. The first one is based on dressed-atom picture which provide a method to generate non-Abelian gauge fields with dark states. The second one is about rotating scheme which is achieved earlier historically. Non-Abelian gauge field inevitably leads to spin-orbit coupling. We reviewed some developments in achieve spin-orbital coupling theoretically and experimentally. The fourth part was devoted to recently developed idea of optical flux lattice that provides a possibility to reach the strongly correlated regime in cold atom systems. We developed a geometrical interpretation based on Coopers theory. Some useful formulae and their proofs were listed in the Appendix.
We theoretically demonstrate that moire phonons at the lowest-energy bands can become chiral. A general symmetry analysis reveals that they originate from stacking configurations leading to an asymmetric interlayer binding energy that breaks the $C_{2z}$ symmetry on the moire length scale. Within elastic theory, we provide a complete classification of van der Waals heterostructures in respect to hosting moire chiral phonons and discuss their emergence in twisted bilayer MoS$_2$ as an example. The formation of the chiral phonons can be qualitatively understood using an effective model, which emphasizes their origin in the energy difference between stacking domains. Since moire chiral phonons are highly tunable, with excitation energies in only a few meV, and moire scale wavelengths, they might find potential applications in phononic twistronic devices.
We consider a system of weakly interacting bosons confined on a planar double ring lattice subjected to two artificial gauge fields. We determine its ground state by solving coupled discrete non-linear Schrodinger equations at mean field level. At varying inter-ring tunnel coupling, flux and interactions we identify the vortex, Meissner and biased-ladder phases also predicted for a bosonic linear ladder by a variational Ansatz. We also find peculiar features associated to the ring geometry, in particular parity effects in the number of vortices, and the appearance of a single vortex in the Meissner phase. We show that the persistent currents on the rings carry precise information on the various phases. Finally, we propose a way of observing the Meissner and vortex phases via spiral interferogram techniques.
We study three-leg-ladder optical lattices loaded with repulsive atomic Bose-Einstein condensates and subjected to artificial gauge fields. By employing the plane-wave analysis and variational approach, we analyze the band-gap structure of the energy spectrum and reveal the exotic swallow-tail loop structures in the energy-level anti-crossing regions due to an interplay between the atom-atom interaction and artificial gauge field. Also, we discover stable discrete solitons residing in a semi-infinite gap above the highest band, these discrete solitons are associated with the chiral edge currents.