Experimental realization of strong effective magnetic fields in an optical lattice

We use Raman-assisted tunneling in an optical superlattice to generate large tunable effective magnetic fields for ultracold atoms. When hopping in the lattice, the accumulated phase shift by an atom is equivalent to the Aharonov-Bohm phase of a charged particle exposed to a staggered magnetic field of large magnitude, on the order of 1 flux quantum per plaquette. We study the ground state of this system and observe that the frustration induced by the magnetic field can lead to a degenerate ground state for noninteracting particles. We provide a measurement of the local phase acquired from Raman-induced tunneling, demonstrating time-reversal symmetry breaking of the underlying Hamiltonian. Furthermore, the quantum cyclotron orbit of single atoms in the lattice exposed to the magnetic field is directly revealed.     

Fractional quantum Hall states of atoms in optical lattices

We describe a method to create fractional quantum Hall states of atoms confined in optical lattices. We show that the dynamics of the atoms in the lattice is analogous to the motion of a charged particle in a magnetic field if an oscillating quadrupole potential is applied together with a periodic modulation of the tunneling between lattice sites. In a suitable parameter regime the ground state in the lattice is of the fractional quantum Hall type, and we show how these states can be reached by melting a Mott-insulator state in a superlattice potential. Finally, we discuss techniques to observe these strongly correlated states.     

Exact parent Hamiltonian for the quantum Hall states in a lattice

We study lattice models of charged particles in uniform magnetic fields. We show how longer range hopping can be engineered to produce a massively degenerate manifold of single-particle ground states with wave functions identical to those making up the lowest Landau level of continuum electrons in a magnetic field. We find that in the presence of local interactions, and at the appropriate filling factors, Laughlin's fractional quantum Hall wave function is an exact many-body ground state of our lattice model. The hopping matrix elements in our model fall off as a Gaussian, and when the flux per plaquette is small compared to the fundamental flux quantum one only needs to include nearest and next-nearest neighbor hoppings. We suggest how to realize this model using atoms in optical lattices, and describe observable consequences of the resulting fractional quantum Hall physics.     

Observation of photon-assisted tunneling in optical lattices

We have observed tunneling suppression and photon-assisted tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice subjected to a constant force plus a sinusoidal shaking. For a sufficiently large constant force, the ground energy levels of the lattice are shifted out of resonance and tunneling is suppressed; when the shaking is switched on, the levels are coupled by low-frequency photons and tunneling resumes. Our results agree well with theoretical predictions and demonstrate the usefulness of optical lattices for studying solid-state phenomena.     

High-field fractional quantum Hall effect in optical lattices

We consider interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice subject to a large simulated magnetic field. We develop a model similar to a bilayer fractional quantum Hall system valid near simple rational numbers of magnetic flux quanta per lattice cell. Then we calculate its ground state, magnetic lengths, fractional fillings, and find unexpected sign changes in the Hall current. Finally we study methods for detecting these novel features via shot noise and Hall current measurements.     

Photon-assisted tunneling in a biased strongly correlated Bose gas

We study the impact of coherently generated lattice photons on an atomic Mott insulator subjected to a uniform force. Analogous to an array of tunnel-coupled and biased quantum dots, we observe sharp, interaction-shifted photon-assisted tunneling resonances corresponding to tunneling one and two lattice sites either with or against the force and resolve multiorbital shifts of these resonances. By driving a Landau-Zener sweep across such a resonance, we realize a quantum phase transition between a paramagnet and an antiferromagnet and observe quench dynamics when the system is tuned to the critical point. Direct extensions will produce gauge fields and site-resolved spin flips, for topological physics and quantum computing.     

Magnetism in artificial lattices

We compare magnetism in two artificial lattice structures, a quantum dot array formed in a two-dimensional electron gas and an optical lattice loaded with repulsive, contact-interacting fermionic atoms. When the tunneling between the lattice sites is strong, both lattices are non-magnetic. With reduced tunneling in the tight-binding limit, the shell-filling of the single-site quantum wells combined with Hund's rule determines the magnetism. This leads to a systematic magnetic phase diagram with non-magnetic, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases.     

Light-Induced Hofstadter＇s Butterfly Spectrum in Optical Lattices

We propose a scheme to create an effective magnetic field, which can be perceived by cold neutral atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice, with a laser field with a space-dependent phase and a conventional laser field acting on A-type three-level atoms. When the dimensionless parameter a, being the ratio of flux through a lattice cell to one flux quantum, is rational, the energy spectrum shows a fractal band structure, which is so-called Hofstadter＇s butterfly.     

Cyclotron dynamics of neutral atoms in optical lattices with additional magnetic field and harmonic trap potential

We analytically and numerically discuss the stability and dynamics of neutral atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice subjected to an additional harmonic trap potential and artificial magnetic field. The harmonic trap potential plays a key role in modifying the equilibrium state properties of the system and stabilizing the cyclotron orbits of the condensate.Meanwhile, the presence of the harmonic trap potential and lattice potential results in rich cyclotron dynamics of the condensate. The coupling effects of lattice potential, artificial magnetic field, and harmonic trap potential lead to single periodic, multi-periodic or quasi-periodic cyclotron orbits of the condensate. So we can control the cyclotron dynamics of neutral atoms in optical lattice by manipulating the strength of harmonic confinement, artificial magnetic field, and initial conditions. Our results provide a direct theoretical evidence for the cyclotron dynamics of neutral atoms in optical lattices exposed to the artificial gauge magnetic field and harmonic trap potential.     

Spin waves and quantum criticality in the frustrated XY pyrochlore antiferromagnet Er2Ti2O7

We report detailed measurements of the low temperature magnetic phase diagram of Er2Ti2O7. Heat capacity and time-of-flight neutron scattering studies of single crystals reveal unconventional low-energy states. Er3+ magnetic ions reside on a pyrochlore lattice in Er2Ti2O7, where local XY anisotropy and antiferromagnetic interactions give rise to a unique frustrated system. In zero field, the ground state exhibits coexisting short and long-range order, accompanied by soft collective spin excitations previously believed to be absent. The application of finite magnetic fields tunes the ground state continuously through a landscape of noncollinear phases, divided by a zero temperature phase transition at micro{0}H{c} approximately 1.5 T. The characteristic energy scale for spin fluctuations is seen to vanish at the critical point, as expected for a second order quantum phase transition driven by quantum fluctuations.     

弱磁场下三阱光学超晶格中自旋为1的超冷原子特性研究

双阱光学超晶格中的超冷原子是近期冷原子物理领域的研究热点. 本文推广提出了实现三阱光学超晶格的方案, 并采用精确对角化的方法分别研究了弱磁场下对称三阱 光学超晶格中铁磁性和反铁磁性的自旋为1的原子系统的基态, 发现二者的相图很不相同: 反铁磁性原子对应的相图中没有沿磁场方向总自旋磁量子数为±2的基态, 而铁磁性原子对应的相图中可能有. 在负的二次塞曼能量区域, 铁磁性原子的相图中只有完全极化态. 分析了可控参数影响基态的物理本质. 由于这些量子自旋态可以通过调节外磁场和光势垒的高度非常简便而精确地控制, 适合用来研究自旋纠缠. 关键词： 三阱光学超晶格 自旋为1的原子 弱磁场     

Degeneracy of many-body quantum states in an optical lattice under a uniform magnetic field

We prove a theorem that shows the degeneracy of many-body states for particles in a periodic lattice and under a uniform magnetic field depends on the total particle number and the flux filling ratio. Noninteracting fermions and weakly interacting bosons are given as two examples. For the latter case, the phenomenon can also be physically understood in terms of destructive quantum interference of multiple symmetry-related tunneling paths between classical energy minima, which is reminiscent of the spin-parity effect discovered in magnetic molecular clusters. We also show that the quantum ground state of a mesoscopic number of bosons in this system is not a simple mean-field state but a fragmented state even for very weak interactions.     

Superfluid fermi gas in a 1D optical lattice

We calculate the superfluid transition temperature for a two-component 3D Fermi gas in a 1D tight optical lattice and discuss a dimensional crossover from the 3D to quasi-2D regime. For the geometry of finite size discs in the 1D lattice, we find that even for a large number of atoms per disc the critical effective tunneling rate for a quantum transition to the Mott insulator state can be large compared to the loss rate caused by three-body recombination. This allows the observation of the Mott transition, in contrast to the case of Bose-condensed gases in the same geometry.     

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.     

Supersolids versus phase separation in two-dimensional lattice bosons

We study the nature of the ground state of the two-dimensional extended boson Hubbard model on a square lattice by quantum Monte Carlo methods. We demonstrate that strong but finite on-site interaction U along with a comparable nearest-neighbor repulsion V result in a thermodynamically stable supersolid ground state for densities larger than 1/2, in contrast to fillings less than 1/2 or for very large U, where the checkerboard supersolid is unstable towards phase separation. We discuss the relevance of our results to realizations of supersolids using cold bosonic atoms in optical lattices.     

Quantum phases in a resonantly interacting boson-fermion mixture

We consider a resonantly interacting boson-fermion mixture of 40K and 87Rb atoms in an optical lattice. We show that by using a red-detuned optical lattice the mixture can be accurately described by a generalized Hubbard model for 40K and 87Rb atoms, and 40K-87Rb molecules. The microscopic parameters of this model are fully determined by the details of the optical lattice and the interspecies Feshbach resonance in the absence of the lattice. We predict a quantum phase transition to occur in this system already at low atomic filling fraction, and present the phase diagram as a function of the temperature and the applied magnetic field.     

Diverse solid and supersolid phases of bosons in a triangular lattice

We investigate the ground state of bosons with long-range interactions in the large U limit on a triangular lattice. By mapping this system to the spin-1/2 XXZ model in a magnetic field, we can apply the spin wave theory to this study. We demonstrate how to construct the phase diagrams within the spin wave theory. The phase diagrams are given in an extensive parameter region, where, besides the superfluid phase, diverse solid and supersolid phases are shown to exist in this model. Especially, we find that the phase diagram obtained in this method is consistent with the one obtained previously using numerical techniques in the Ising limit. This confirms the effectiveness of our method. We analyze the stability of all the obtained supersolids and show that they will not be ruined by the quantum fluctuations. We observe that the quantum fluctuations in the stripe supersolid phase could be enhanced by the external field. We also discuss the relevance of our result with the experiment that may be realized with ultracold bosonic polar molecules in a triangular optical lattice.     

Conditional quantum phase gate between two 3-state atoms

We propose a scheme for conditional quantum logic between two 3-state atoms that share a quantum data bus such as a single mode optical field in cavity QED systems, or a collective vibrational state of trapped ions. Making use of quantum interference, our scheme achieves successful conditional phase evolution without any real transitions of atomic internal states or populating the quantum data bus. In addition, it requires only common addressing of the two atoms by external laser fields.     

Photon-assisted mesoscopic transport through a quantum dot–carbon nanotube system perturbed by microwave fields

We have investigated the coherent mesoscopic transport through the system with a quantum dot coupled to single-wall carbon nanotubes (CN–QD–CN) interfered by microwave fields (MWFs). The investigation focuses on the tunneling behaviors induced by the double coherent MWFs and the nature of CN leads. The incoherent fields induce the tunneling current possessing symmetric resonant behaviors. The coherent fields induce the asymmetric tunneling current resulting from the interference of tunneling current branches to form asymmetric photon-assisted net current. The quantum leads possess specific density of state (DOS) structure, and the matching–mismatching behavior takes important role in the mesoscopic transport. The feature of coupled MWFs and the connected quantum wires together control the characteristics of the mesoscopic system.