Three-spin interactions in optical lattices and criticality in cluster Hamiltonians

We demonstrate that in a triangular configuration of an optical lattice of two atomic species a variety of novel spin-1/2 Hamiltonians can be generated. They include effective three-spin interactions resulting from the possibility of atoms tunneling along two different paths. This motivates the study of ground state properties of various three-spin Hamiltonians in terms of their two-point and n-point correlations as well as the localizable entanglement. We present a Hamiltonian with a finite energy gap above its unique ground state for which the localizable entanglement length diverges for a wide interval of applied external fields, while at the same time the classical correlation length remains finite.     

Coherent collisional spin dynamics in optical lattices

We report on the observation of coherent, purely collisionally driven spin dynamics of neutral atoms in an optical lattice. For high lattice depths, atom pairs confined to the same lattice site show weakly damped Rabi-type oscillations between two-particle Zeeman states of equal magnetization, induced by spin-changing collisions. Moreover, measurement of the oscillation frequency allows for precise determination of the spin-changing collisional coupling strengths, which are directly related to fundamental scattering lengths describing interatomic collisions at ultracold temperatures.     

Controlling spin exchange interactions of ultracold atoms in optical lattices

We describe a general technique that allows one to induce and control strong interaction between spin states of neighboring atoms in an optical lattice. We show that the properties of spin exchange interactions, such as magnitude, sign, and anisotropy, can be designed by adjusting the optical potentials. We illustrate how this technique can be used to efficiently "engineer" quantum spin systems with desired properties, for specific examples ranging from scalable quantum computation to probing a model with complex topological order that supports exotic anyonic excitations.     

Controlling and detecting spin correlations of ultracold atoms in optical lattices

We report on the controlled creation of a valence bond state of delocalized effective-spin singlet and triplet dimers by means of a bichromatic optical superlattice. We demonstrate a coherent coupling between the singlet and triplet states and show how the superlattice can be employed to measure the singlet-fraction employing a spin-blockade effect. Our method provides a reliable way to detect and control nearest-neighbor spin correlations in many-body systems of ultracold atoms. Being able to measure these correlations is an important ingredient in studying quantum magnetism in optical lattices. We furthermore employ a SWAP operation between atoms which are part of different triplets, thus effectively increasing their bond-length. Such a SWAP operation provides an important step towards the massively parallel creation of a multiparticle entangled state in the lattice.     

Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization of spin Hamiltonians

The Bohr-Sommerfeld rule for a spin system is obtained, including the first quantum corrections. The rule applies to both integer and half-integer spin. It is tested for various models, in particular, the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model, and found to agree very well with exact results.     

Probing spin exchange interaction in two-species bosons in optical lattices by cavity-enhanced light scattering

We study the system that two-component atoms, which are confined in an off-resonance optical lattice, interact with two cavity modes. It has a rich phase diagram composed of many phases, such as anti-ferromagnetic, ferromagnetic, and the XY phases in Mott-insulating (MI) region with odd filling factor. These phases could be distinguished by analyzing the photon numbers with two methods, i.e. the semiclassical approximation and the quantized approach, depending on the intensity of the probe light.     

Mechanical analogues of spin Hamiltonians and dynamics

Bloch et al. mapped the precession of the spin-half in a magnetic field of variable magnitude and direction to the rotations of a rigid sphere rolling on a curved surface utilizing SU(2)–SO(3)$\mathit{SU}(2)\text{–}\mathit{SO}(3)$ isomorphism. This formalism is extended to study the behaviour of spin–orbit interactions and the mechanical analogy for Rashba–Dresselhauss spin–orbit interaction in two dimensions is presented by making its spin states isomorphic to the rotations of a rigid sphere rolling on a ring. The change in phase of spin is represented by the angle of rotation of sphere after a complete revolution. In order to develop the mechanical analogy for the spin filter, we find that perfect spin filtration of down spin makes the sphere to rotate at some unique angles and the perfect spin filtration of up spin causes the rotations with certain discrete frequencies.     

Singular manifolds and quasi-periodic solutions of Hamiltonians for vortex lattices

A general method for establishing the existence of quasi-periodic solutions of Hamiltonian systems for vortex lattices is illustrated in a simple example involving two degrees of freedom. The geometry of intersecting singular manifolds of the Hamiltonians introduces suitable canonical transformations which put the Hamiltonian into the form of singular weakly coupled oscillators. As by-products of this procedure, additional integrals of motion are found for the leading term in the transformed Hamiltonian. These extra integrals are approximate invariants for the full Hamiltonians.     

Bose-Fermi mixtures in optical lattices

Using mean field theory, we have studied Bose-Fermi mixtures in a one-dimensional optical lattice in the case of an attractive boson-fermion interaction. We consider that the fermions are in the degenerate regime and that the laser intensities are such that quantum coherence across the condensate is ensured. We discuss the effect of the optical lattice on the critical rotational frequency for vortex line creation in the Bose-Einstein condensate, as well as how it affects the stability of the boson-fermion mixture. A reduction of the critical frequency for nucleating a vortex is observed as the strength of the applied laser is increased. The onset of instability of the mixture occurs for a sizably lower number of fermions in the presence of a deep optical lattice.     

Graphene-like physics in optical lattices

Graphene has attracted enormous attention over the past years in condensed matter physics. The most interesting feature of graphene is that its low-energy excitations are relativistic Dirac fermions. Such feature is the origin of many topological properties in graphene-like physics. On the other hand, ultracold quantum gas trapped in an optical lattice has become a unique setting for quantum simulation of condensed matter physics. Here, we mainly review our recent work on quantum simulation of graphene-like physics with ultracold atoms trapped in a honeycomb or square optical lattice, including the simulation of Dirac fermions and quantum Hall effect with and without Landau levels. We also present the related experimental advances.     

Matter-wave propagation in optical lattices

Coherent propagation of atomic-matter waves in a one-dimensional optical lattice is studied. Wave packets of cold two-level atoms propagate simultaneously in two optical potentials in a dressed-state basis. Three regimes of the wave-packet propagation are specified by the quantity Δ² /ω _D , where Δ and ω _D are the dimensionless atom–laser detuning and the Doppler shift, respectively. At Δ² /ω _D ≫ 1, the propagation is essentially adiabatic, at Δ² /ω _D ≪ 1, it is (almost) resonant, and at Δ² ≃ ω _D , the wave packets propagate nonadiabatically, splitting at each node of the standing wave. The latter means that the atom makes a transition from one potential to the other one when crossing each node, and the probability of that transition is given by a Landau–Zener-like formula. All the regimes of propagation are studied with δ-like and Gaussian wave packets in the momentum and position spaces. Varying the control parameters, we can create wave packets trapped in a well of optical potentials and moving ballistically in a given direction in close analogy with point-like atoms. Within some range of the parameters, we force the atom to move in a pure quamtum-mechanical manner in such a way that a part of the packet is trapped in a well, and the other part propagates ballistically. The propagation modes are found to be characterized by different types of time evolution of the uncertainty product and the Wigner function.     

Dipolar molecules in optical lattices

We study the extended Bose-Hubbard model describing an ultracold gas of dipolar molecules in an optical lattice, taking into account all on-site and nearest-neighbor interactions, including occupation-dependent tunneling and pair tunneling terms. Using exact diagonalization and the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz, we show that these terms can destroy insulating phases and lead to novel quantum phases. These considerable changes of the phase diagram have to be taken into account in upcoming experiments with dipolar molecules.     

Three-fermion problems in optical lattices

We present exact results for the spectra of three fermionic atoms in a single well of an optical lattice. For the three lowest hyperfine states of 6Li atoms, we find a Borromean state across the region of the distinct pairwise Feshbach resonances. For 40K atoms, nearby Feshbach resonances are known for two of the pairs, and a bound three-body state develops towards the positive scattering-length side. In addition, we study the sensitivity of our results to atomic details. The predicted few-body phenomena can be realized in optical lattices in the limit of low tunneling.     

Polarization singularities in optical lattices

Polarization singularities are shown to be unavoidable features of three-dimensional optical lattices. These singularities take the form of lines of circular polarization, C lines, and lines of linear polarization, L lines. The polarization figures surrounding a C line (L line) rotate about the line with winding number +/-1/2 (+/-1). C and L lines permeate the lattice, meander throughout the unit cell, and form closed loops. Surprisingly, every point in a linearly polarized optical lattice is found to be a singularity about which the surrounding polarization vectors rotate with an integer winding number.     

Vortex-Peierls states in optical lattices

We show that vortices, induced in cold atom superfluids in optical lattices, may order in a novel vortex-Peierls ground state. In such a state vortices do not form a simple lattice but arrange themselves in clusters, within which the vortices are partially delocalized, tunneling between classically degenerate configurations. We demonstrate that this exotic quantum many-body state is selected by an order-from-disorder mechanism for a special combination of the vortex filling and lattice geometry that has a macroscopic number of classically degenerate ground states.     

Solitons in complex optical lattices

We present an overview of our recent results in the area of soliton excitation and control in optical lattices induced by different types of nondiffracting beams featuring unique symmetries. Optical lattices offer the possibility to engineer and to control the diffraction of light beams in media with transversally modulated optical properties, to manage the corresponding reflection and transmission bands, and to form specially designed defects. Consequently, they afford the existence of a rich variety of new families of nonlinear stationary waves and solitons, lead to new rich dynamical phenomena, and offer novel conceptual opportunities for all-optical shaping, switching and routing of optical signals encoded in soliton formats. In this overview, we consider different types of solitons, including fundamental, multipole, and vortex solitons in reconfigurable lattices optically induced by nondiffracting radially symmetric and azimuthally modulated single Bessel beams, soliton control in networks, couplers, and switches induced by several mutually coherent or incoherent Bessel beams, we address soliton properties in three-dimensional Bessel lattices, as well as in lattices produced by Mathieu and parabolic optical beams.     

Correlation inequalities for Ising spin lattices

A change of spin representation is used to present expectation inequalities on Ising lattices directly as sums of terms of like sign. The technique is extended to correlation inequalities by introducing replica variables which convert correlations into expectations on a larger space. Second order correlations are analyzed in full from this viewpoint, recovering the FKG set, among others. Third order correlations are examined in some detail, and the sign of the multi-site Ursell correlationsF ₃,F ₄,F ₆ established under appropriate restrictions.     

Hereditary structure in Hamiltonians: Information geometry of Ising spin chains

This Letter deals with the problem of approximating the canonical state of an Ising spin chain by a hierarchical series of independent and identically distributed cluster states. Based on information geometry, it is shown that the structure of the effective Hamiltonian for each cluster state is inherited from the total Hamiltonian. This fact partly justifies the methodology of mean field theories. The issue of a phase transition is further analyzed from the point of view of statistical hypothesis testing.