No Arabic abstract
In this letter we propose a method to realize a kind of spin-orbit coupling in ultracold Bose and Fermi gases whose format and strength depend on density of atoms. Our method combines two-photon Raman transition and periodical modulation of spin-dependent interaction, which gives rise to the direct Raman process and the interaction assisted Raman process, and the latter depends on density of atoms. These two processes have opposite effects in term of spin-momentum locking and compete with each other. As the interaction modulation increases, the system undergoes a crossover from the direct Raman process dominated regime to the interaction assisted Raman process dominated regime. For this crossover, we show that for bosons, both the condensate momentum and the chirality of condensate wave function change sign, and for fermions, the Fermi surface distortion is inverted. We highlight that there exists an emergent spatial reflection symmetry in the crossover regime, which can manifest itself universally in both Bose and Fermi gases. Our method paves a way to novel phenomena in a non-abelian gauge field with intrinsic dynamics.
This review focuses on recent developments on studying synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling in ultracold atomic gases. Two types of SO coupling are discussed. One is Raman process induced coupling between spin and motion along one of the spatial directions, and the other is Rashba SO coupling. We emphasize their common features in both single-particle and two-body physics and their consequences in many-body physics. For instance, single particle ground state degeneracy leads to novel features of superfluidity and richer phase diagram; increased low-energy density-of-state enhances interaction effects; the absence of Galilean invariance and spin-momentum locking give rise to intriguing behaviors of superfluid critical velocity and novel quantum dynamics; and mixing of two-body singlet and triplet states yields novel fermion pairing structure and topological superfluids. With these examples, we show that investigating SO coupling in cold atom systems can enrich our understanding of basic phenomena such as superfluidity, provide a good platform for simulating condensed matter states such as topological superfluids, and more importantly, result in novel quantum systems such as SO coupled unitary Fermi gas or high spin quantum gases. Finally we also point out major challenges and possible future directions.
We study beyond-mean-field properties of interacting spin-1 Bose gases with synthetic Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling at low energies. We derive a many-body Hamiltonian following a tight-binding approximation in quasi-momentum space, where the effective spin dependence of the collisions that emerges from spin-orbit coupling leads to dominant correlated tunneling processes that couple the different bound states. We discuss the properties of the spectrum of the derived Hamiltonian and its experimental signatures. In a certain region of the parameter space, the system becomes integrable, and its dynamics becomes analogous to that of a spin-1 condensate with spin-dependent collisions. Remarkably, we find that such dynamics can be observed in existing experimental setups through quench experiments that are robust against magnetic fluctuations.
In this letter we address the issue how synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling can strongly affect three-body physics in ultracold atomic gases. We consider a system which consists of three fermionic atoms, including two spinless heavy atoms and one spin-1/2 light atom subjected to an isotropic SO coupling. We find that SO coupling can induce universal three-body bound states with negative s-wave scattering length at a smaller mass ratio, where no trimer bound state can exist if in the absence of SO coupling. The energies of these trimers are independent of high-energy cutoff, and therefore they are universal ones. Moreover, the resulting atom-dimer resonance can be effectively controlled by SO coupling strength. Our results can be applied to systems like ${}^6$Li and ${}^{40}$K mixture.
We theoretically explore atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) subject to position-dependent spin-orbit coupling (SOC). This SOC can be produced by cyclically laser coupling four internal atomic ground (or metastable) states in an environment where the detuning from resonance depends on position. The resulting spin-orbit coupled BEC phase-separates into domains, each of which contain density modulations - stripes - aligned either along the x or y direction. In each domain, the stripe orientation is determined by the sign of the local detuning. When these stripes have mismatched spatial periods along domain boundaries, non-trivial topological spin textures form at the interface, including skyrmions-like spin vortices and anti-vortices. In contrast to vortices present in conventional rotating BECs, these spin-vortices are stable topological defects that are not present in the corresponding homogenous stripe-phase spin-orbit coupled BECs.
Periodicity is one of the most fundamental structural characteristics of systems occurring in nature. The properties of these systems depend strongly on the symmetry of the underlying periodic structure. In solid state materials - for example - the static and transport properties as well as the magnetic and electronic characteristics are crucially influenced by the crystal symmetry. In this context, hexagonal structures play an extremely important role and lead to novel physics like that of carbon nanotubes or graphene. Here we report on the first realization of ultracold atoms in a spin-dependent optical lattice with hexagonal symmetry. We show how combined effects of the lattice and interactions between atoms lead to a forced antiferromagnetic Neel order when two spin-components localize at different lattice sites. We also demonstrate that the coexistence of two components - one Mott-insulating and the other one superfluid - leads to the formation of a forced supersolid. Our observations are consistent with theoretical predictions using Gutzwiller mean-field theory.