We study the possible ground state configurations of two strongly coupled chains of charge neutral spin-3/2 fermionic atoms interacting via short range van der Waals interaction. The coupling between the two chains is realized by relatively large hop
ping amplitude. Exploiting that such a ladder configuration can be mapped to an effective one-band model we analyze the emerging ground states of the system. We show that various spatially inhomogeneous states, valence bond states, plaquette states compete depending on the filling and the ratio of the interaction strengths in the singlet and quintet scattering channel. We find that a Luttinger liquid state is the ground state of the strongly coupled ladder in an extended region of the parameter space, and we also show that a topologically nontrivial charge Haldane state can emerge in the strongly coupled ladder at quarter and three-quarter fillings.
We study the effect of the coupling between the electronic ground state of high spin alkaline-earth fermionic atoms and their metastable optically excited state, when the system is confined in a one-dimensional chain, and show that the system provide
s a possible realization of a finite momentum pairing (Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov-like) state without spin- or bare mass imbalance. We determine the $beta$-functions of the renormalization group trajectories for general spin and analyze the structure of the possible gapped and gapless states in the hydrodynamic limit. Due to the SU(N) symmetry in the spin space, complete mode separation can not be observed even in the fully gapless 2N-component Luttinger liquid state. Contrary, 4 velocities characterize the system. We solve the renormalization group equations for spin-9/2 strontium-87 isotope and analyze in detail its phase diagram. The fully gapless Luttinger liquid state does not stabilize in the two-orbital system of the $^{87}$Sr atoms, instead, different gapped non-Gaussian fixed points are identified either with dominant density or superconducting fluctuations. The superconducting states are stable in a nontrivial shaped region in the parameter space as a consequence of the coupling between the two electronic states.
We propose an experimentally feasible setup with ultracold alkaline earth atoms to simulate the dynamics of U(1) lattice gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions with a Chern-Simons term. To this end we consider the ground state properties of spin-5/2 alkali
ne earth fermions in a honeycomb lattice. We use the Gutzwiller projected variational approach in the strongly repulsive regime in the case of filling 1/6. The ground state of the system is a chiral spin liquid state with $2pi/3$ flux per plaquette, which spontaneously violates time reversal invariance. We demonstrate that due to the breaking of time reversal symmetry the system exhibits quantum Hall effect and chiral edge states. We relate the experimentally accessible spin fluctuations to the emerging gauge field dynamics. We discuss also properties of the lowest energy competing orders.
