Resonantly enhanced tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials

We report on measurements of resonantly enhanced tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates loaded into an optical lattice. By controlling the initial conditions of our system we were able to observe resonant tunneling in the ground and the first two excited states of the lattice wells. We also investigated the effect of the intrinsic nonlinearity of the condensate on the tunneling resonances.     

Tunneling resonances and coherence in an optical lattice

The center-of-mass quantization of atoms trapped in a gray optical lattice is observed to manifest itself in the steady-state properties of the atoms. Modulations in the lifetime and macroscopic magnetization as a function of an applied B field are attributed to quantum mechanical tunneling resonances and are shown to exist only under conditions which afford spatial coherence of the trapped atoms over several lattice wells and coherence times that exceed the tunneling period.     

Tuning the Mott transition in a Bose-Einstein condensate by multiple photon absorption

We study the time-dependent dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in an optical lattice. Modeling the system as a Bose-Hubbard model, we show how applying a periodic driving field can induce coherent destruction of tunneling. In the low-frequency regime, we obtain the novel result that the destruction of tunneling displays extremely sharp peaks when the driving frequency is resonant with the depth of the trapping potential ("multi-photon resonances"), which allows the quantum phase transition between the Mott insulator and the superfluid state to be controlled with high precision. We further show how the waveform of the field can be chosen to maximize this effect.     

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.     

Resonant spin-changing collisions in spinor fermi gases

The compensation of quadratic Zeeman effect and trap energy in high-spin fermions is shown to lead to resonances in the spin-changing collisions that are typically absent in spinor condensates and spin-1/2 fermions. We study these resonances in lattice fermions, showing that they permit the targeting of a particular spin-changing channel while suppressing the rest and the creation of magnetically insensitive superpositions of many-body states with entangled spin and trap degrees of freedom. Finally, the intersite tunneling may lead to a quantum phase transition described by a quantum Ising model.     

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.     

Correlation between shape and electronic states in nanostructures

We show how the electronic states of quantum wires and quantum dots can be evaluated exactly starting from the profile of the nanostructure observed by transmission electron microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The calculated quantization energies reproduce the energy position of the luminescence resonances in the optical spectra of different samples, without fitting parameters.     

Spin quantum tunneling in single molecular magnets: fingerprints in transport spectroscopy of current and noise

We demonstrate that transport spectroscopy of single molecular magnets shows signatures of quantum tunneling at low temperatures. We find current and noise oscillations as a function of bias voltage due to a weak violation of spin-selection rules by quantum tunneling processes. The interplay with Boltzmann suppression factors leads to fake resonances with temperature-dependent position which do not correspond to any charge excitation energy. Furthermore, we find that quantum tunneling can completely suppress transport if the transverse anisotropy has a high symmetry.     

Resonance- and chaos-assisted tunneling in mixed regular-chaotic systems

We present evidence that nonlinear resonances govern the tunneling process between symmetry-related islands of regular motion in mixed regular-chaotic systems. In a similar way as for near-integrable tunneling, such resonances induce couplings between regular states within the islands and states that are supported by the chaotic sea. On the basis of this mechanism, we derive a semiclassical expression for the average tunneling rate, which yields good agreement in comparison with the exact quantum tunneling rates calculated for the kicked rotor and the kicked Harper.     

Resonant tunneling into a biased fractional quantum Hall edge

We observe resonant tunneling into a voltage biased fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) edge, using atomically sharp tunnel barriers unique to cleaved-edge overgrown devices. The resonances demonstrate different tunnel couplings to the metallic lead and the FQHE edge. Weak coupling to the FQHE edge produces clear non-Fermi liquid behavior with a sixfold increase in resonance area under bias arising from the power law density of states at the FQHE edge. A simple device model uses the resonant tunneling formalism for chiral Luttinger liquids to successfully describe the data.     

Fermionic atoms in a three dimensional optical lattice: observing Fermi surfaces, dynamics, and interactions

We have studied interacting and noninteracting quantum degenerate Fermi gases in a three-dimensional optical lattice. We directly image the Fermi surface of the atoms in the lattice by turning off the optical lattice adiabatically. Because of the confining potential, gradual filling of the lattice transforms the system from a normal state into a band insulator. The dynamics of the transition from a band insulator to a normal state is studied, and the time scale is measured to be an order of magnitude larger than the tunneling time in the lattice. Using a Feshbach resonance, we increase the interaction between atoms in two different spin states and dynamically induce a coupling between the lowest energy bands. We observe a shift of this coupling with respect to the Feshbach resonance in free space which is anticipated for strongly confined atoms.     

Experimental realization of strong effective magnetic fields in optical superlattice potentials

We present the experimental generation of large effective magnetic fields for ultracold atoms using photon-assisted tunneling in an optical superlattice. The underlying method does not rely on the internal structure of the atoms and, therefore, constitutes a general approach to realize widely tunable artificial gauge fields without the drawbacks of near-resonant optical potentials. 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 one 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 non-interacting particles. We provide a local measurement of the phase acquired by single particles due to photon-assisted tunneling. Furthermore, the quantum cyclotron orbit of single atoms in the lattice exposed to the effective magnetic field is directly revealed.     

Dissipation and tunneling in quantum Hall bilayers

We discuss the interplay between transport and intrinsic dissipation in quantum Hall bilayers, within the framework of a simple thought experiment. We compute, for the first time, quantum corrections to the semiclassical dynamics of this system. This allows us to reinterpret tunneling measurements on these systems. We find a strong peak in the zero-temperature tunneling current that arises from the decay of Josephson-like oscillations into incoherent charge fluctuations. In the presence of an in-plane field, resonances in the tunneling current develop an asymmetric line shape.     

Phonon assisted resonant tunneling and its phonons control

We observe a series of sharp resonant features in the tunneling differential conductance of InAs quantum dots. We found that dissipative quantum tunneling has a strong influence on the operation of nanodevices. Because of such tunneling the current–voltage characteristics of tunnel contact created between atomic force microscope tip and a surface of InAs/GaAs quantum dots display many interesting peaks. We found that the number, position, and heights of these peaks are associated with the phonon modes involved. To describe the found effect we use a quasi-classical approximation. There the tunneling current is related to a creation of a dilute instanton–anti-instanton gas. Our experimental data are well described with exactly solvable model where one charged particle is weakly interacting with two promoting phonon modes associated with external medium. We conclude that the characteristics of the tunnel nanoelectronic devices can thus be controlled by a proper choice of phonons existing in materials, which are involved.     

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.     

Coupled quantum dots: manifestation of an artificial molecule

Transport spectroscopy reveals the microscopic features of few-electron quantum dots which justify the nameartificial atoms. New physics evolve when two quantum dots are coupled by a tunneling barrier. We study, both theoretically and experimentally, the tunneling spectroscopy on a double quantum dot. A detailed lineshape analysis of the conductance resonances proves that off-resonant coherent interdot tunneling governs transport through this system, while tunneling into the double quantum dot occurs resonantly. This coherent interdot tunneling witnesses the evolution of a delocalized electronic state which can be compared to a valence electron of thisartificial molecule.     

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.     

Quantum Tunneling of Two-Species Cold Bosonic Atoms in Optical Lattices

In this letter, we have studied quantum tunneling of two-species cold bosonic atoms in an optical lattices. When the optical lattice is not infinitely long and the spin excitations are not in the long-wavelength limit, quantum tunnelings are presented.     

Klein tunneling of a quasirelativistic Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

A proof-of-principle experiment simulating effects predicted by relativistic wave equations with ultracold atoms in a bichromatic optical lattice that allows for a tailoring of the dispersion relation is reported. We observe the analog of Klein tunneling, the penetration of relativistic particles through a potential barrier without the exponential damping that is characteristic for nonrelativistic quantum tunneling. Both linear (relativistic) and quadratic (nonrelativistic) dispersion relations are investigated, and significant barrier transmission is observed only for the relativistic case.