173 research outputs found
Practical scheme for a light-induced gauge field in an atomic Bose gas
We propose a scheme to generate an Abelian gauge field in an atomic gas using
two crossed laser beams. If the internal atomic state follows adiabatically the
eigenstates of the atom-laser interaction, Berry's phase gives rise to a vector
potential that can nucleate vortices in a Bose gas. The present scheme operates
even for a large detuning with respect to the atomic resonance, making it
applicable to alkali-metal atoms without significant heating due to spontaneous
emission. We test the validity of the adiabatic approximation by integrating
the set of coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations associated with the various
internal atomic states, and we show that the steady state of the interacting
gas indeed exhibits a vortex lattice, as expected from the adiabatic gauge
field.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Flux lattices reformulated
We theoretically explore the optical flux lattices produced for ultra-cold
atoms subject to laser fields where both the atom-light coupling and the
effective detuning are spatially periodic. We analyze the geometric vector
potential and the magnetic flux it generates, as well as the accompanying
geometric scalar potential. We show how to understand the gauge-dependent
Aharonov-Bohm singularities in the vector potential, and calculate the
continuous magnetic flux through the elementary cell in terms of these
singularities. The analysis is illustrated with a square optical flux lattice.
We conclude with an explicit laser configuration yielding such a lattice using
a set of five properly chosen beams with two counterpropagating pairs (one
along the x axes and the other y axes), together with a single beam along the z
axis. We show that this lattice is not phase-stable, and identify the one
phase-difference that affects the magnetic flux. Thus armed with realistic
laser setup, we directly compute the Chern number of the lowest Bloch band to
identify the region where the non- zero magnetic flux produces a topologically
non-trivial band structure.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure
A synthetic electric force acting on neutral atoms
Electromagnetism is a simple example of a gauge theory where the underlying
potentials -- the vector and scalar potentials -- are defined only up to a
gauge choice. The vector potential generates magnetic fields through its
spatial variation and electric fields through its time-dependence. We
experimentally produce a synthetic gauge field that emerges only at low energy
in a rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate: the neutral atoms behave as charged
particles do in the presence of a homogeneous effective vector potential. We
have generated a synthetic electric field through the time dependence of an
effective vector potential, a physical consequence even though the vector
potential is spatially uniform
Light-cone-like spreading of correlations in a quantum many-body system
How fast can correlations spread in a quantum many-body system? Based on the
seminal work by Lieb and Robinson, it has recently been shown that several
interacting many-body systems exhibit an effective light cone that bounds the
propagation speed of correlations. The existence of such a "speed of light" has
profound implications for condensed matter physics and quantum information, but
has never been observed experimentally. Here we report on the time-resolved
detection of propagating correlations in an interacting quantum many-body
system. By quenching a one-dimensional quantum gas in an optical lattice, we
reveal how quasiparticle pairs transport correlations with a finite velocity
across the system, resulting in an effective light cone for the quantum
dynamics. Our results open important perspectives for understanding relaxation
of closed quantum systems far from equilibrium as well as for engineering
efficient quantum channels necessary for fast quantum computations.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Single-atom imaging of fermions in a quantum-gas microscope
Single-atom-resolved detection in optical lattices using quantum-gas
microscopes has enabled a new generation of experiments in the field of quantum
simulation. Fluorescence imaging of individual atoms has so far been achieved
for bosonic species with optical molasses cooling, whereas detection of
fermionic alkaline atoms in optical lattices by this method has proven more
challenging. Here we demonstrate single-site- and single-atom-resolved
fluorescence imaging of fermionic potassium-40 atoms in a quantum-gas
microscope setup using electromagnetically-induced-transparency cooling. We
detected on average 1000 fluorescence photons from a single atom within 1.5s,
while keeping it close to the vibrational ground state of the optical lattice.
Our results will enable the study of strongly correlated fermionic quantum
systems in optical lattices with resolution at the single-atom level, and give
access to observables such as the local entropy distribution and individual
defects in fermionic Mott insulators or anti-ferromagnetically ordered phases.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures; Nature Physics, published online 13 July 201
Observation of mesoscopic crystalline structures in a two-dimensional Rydberg gas
The ability to control and tune interactions in ultracold atomic gases has
paved the way towards the realization of new phases of matter. Whereas
experiments have so far achieved a high degree of control over short-ranged
interactions, the realization of long-range interactions would open up a whole
new realm of many-body physics and has become a central focus of research.
Rydberg atoms are very well-suited to achieve this goal, as the van der Waals
forces between them are many orders of magnitude larger than for ground state
atoms. Consequently, the mere laser excitation of ultracold gases can cause
strongly correlated many-body states to emerge directly when atoms are
transferred to Rydberg states. A key example are quantum crystals, composed of
coherent superpositions of different spatially ordered configurations of
collective excitations. Here we report on the direct measurement of strong
correlations in a laser excited two-dimensional atomic Mott insulator using
high-resolution, in-situ Rydberg atom imaging. The observations reveal the
emergence of spatially ordered excitation patterns in the high-density
components of the prepared many-body state. They have random orientation, but
well defined geometry, forming mesoscopic crystals of collective excitations
delocalised throughout the gas. Our experiment demonstrates the potential of
Rydberg gases to realise exotic phases of matter, thereby laying the basis for
quantum simulations of long-range interacting quantum magnets.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Microscopic observation of magnon bound states and their dynamics
More than eighty years ago, H. Bethe pointed out the existence of bound
states of elementary spin waves in one-dimensional quantum magnets. To date,
identifying signatures of such magnon bound states has remained a subject of
intense theoretical research while their detection has proved challenging for
experiments. Ultracold atoms offer an ideal setting to reveal such bound states
by tracking the spin dynamics after a local quantum quench with single-spin and
single-site resolution. Here we report on the direct observation of two-magnon
bound states using in-situ correlation measurements in a one-dimensional
Heisenberg spin chain realized with ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical
lattice. We observe the quantum walk of free and bound magnon states through
time-resolved measurements of the two spin impurities. The increased effective
mass of the compound magnon state results in slower spin dynamics as compared
to single magnon excitations. In our measurements, we also determine the decay
time of bound magnons, which is most likely limited by scattering on thermal
fluctuations in the system. Our results open a new pathway for studying
fundamental properties of quantum magnets and, more generally, properties of
interacting impurities in quantum many-body systems.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
Single-Atom Resolved Fluorescence Imaging of an Atomic Mott Insulator
The reliable detection of single quantum particles has revolutionized the
field of quantum optics and quantum information processing. For several years,
researchers have aspired to extend such detection possibilities to larger scale
strongly correlated quantum systems, in order to record in-situ images of a
quantum fluid in which each underlying quantum particle is detected. Here we
report on fluorescence imaging of strongly interacting bosonic Mott insulators
in an optical lattice with single-atom and single-site resolution. From our
images, we fully reconstruct the atom distribution on the lattice and identify
individual excitations with high fidelity. A comparison of the radial density
and variance distributions with theory provides a precise in-situ temperature
and entropy measurement from single images. We observe Mott-insulating plateaus
with near zero entropy and clearly resolve the high entropy rings separating
them although their width is of the order of only a single lattice site.
Furthermore, we show how a Mott insulator melts for increasing temperatures due
to a proliferation of local defects. Our experiments open a new avenue for the
manipulation and analysis of strongly interacting quantum gases on a lattice,
as well as for quantum information processing with ultracold atoms. Using the
high spatial resolution, it is now possible to directly address individual
lattice sites. One could, e.g., introduce local perturbations or access regions
of high entropy, a crucial requirement for the implementation of novel cooling
schemes for atoms on a lattice
Sudden switch of generalized Lieb-Robinson velocity in a transverse field Ising spin chain
The Lieb-Robinson theorem states that the speed at which the correlations
between two distant nodes in a spin network can be built through local
interactions has an upper bound, which is called the Lieb-Robinson velocity.
Our central aim is to demonstrate how to observe the Lieb-Robinson velocity in
an Ising spin chain with a strong transverse field. We adopt and compare four
correlation measures for characterizing different types of correlations, which
include correlation function, mutual information, quantum discord, and
entanglement of formation. We prove that one of correlation functions shows a
special behavior depending on the parity of the spin number. All the
information-theoretical correlation measures demonstrate the existence of the
Lieb-Robinson velocity. In particular, we find that there is a sudden switch of
the Lieb-Robinson speed with the increasing of the number of spin
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