The strongest interaction between microscopic spins in magnetic materials is the exchange interaction $J_text{ex}$. Therefore, ultrafast control of $J_text{ex}$ holds the promise to control spins on ultimately fast timescales. We demonstrate that tim
e-periodic modulation of the electronic structure by electric fields can be used to reversibly control $J_text{ex}$ on ultrafast timescales in extended antiferromagnetic Mott insulators. In the regime of weak driving strength, we find that $J_text{ex}$ can be enhanced and reduced for frequencies below and above the Mott gap, respectively. Moreover, for strong driving strength, even the sign of $J_text{ex}$ can be reversed and we show that this causes time reversal of the associated quantum spin dynamics. These results suggest wide applications, not only to control magnetism in condensed matter systems, for example, via the excitation of spin resonances, but also to assess fundamental questions concerning the reversibility of the quantum many-body dynamics in cold atom systems.
For the fermionic Hubbard model at strong coupling, we demonstrate that directional transport of localized doublons (repulsively bound pairs of two particles occupying the same site of the crystal lattice) can be achieved by applying an unbiased ac f
ield of time-asymmetric (sawtooth-like) shape. The mechanism involves a transition to intermediate states of virtually zero double occupation which are reached by splitting the doublon by fields of the order of the Hubbard interaction. The process is discussed on the basis of numerically exact calculations for small clusters, and we apply it to more complex states to manipulate the charge order pattern of one-dimensional systems.
We study the Coulomb-to-dipole transition which occurs when the separation $d$ of an electron-hole bilayer system is varied with respect to the characteristic in-layer distances. An analysis of the classical ground state configurations for harmonical
ly confined clusters with $Nleq30$ reveals that the energetically most favorable state can differ from that of two-dimensional pure dipole or Coulomb systems. Performing a normal mode analysis for the N=19 cluster it is found that the lowest mode frequencies exhibit drastic changes when $d$ is varied. Furthermore, we present quantum-mechanical ground states for N=6, 10 and 12 spin-polarized electrons and holes. We compute the single-particle energies and orbitals in self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation over a broad range of layer separations and coupling strengths between the limits of the ideal Fermi gas and the Wigner crystal.
