21 research outputs found
Experimental Demonstration of a Synthetic Lorentz Force by Using Radiation Pressure
Synthetic magnetism in cold atomic gases opened the doors to many exciting
novel physical systems and phenomena. Ubiquitous are the methods used for the
creation of synthetic magnetic fields. They include rapidly rotating
Bose-Einstein condensates employing the analogy between the Coriolis and the
Lorentz force, and laser-atom interactions employing the analogy between the
Berry phase and the Aharonov-Bohm phase. Interestingly, radiation pressure -
being one of the most common forces induced by light - has not yet been used
for synthetic magnetism. We experimentally demonstrate a synthetic Lorentz
force, based on the radiation pressure and the Doppler effect, by observing the
centre-of-mass motion of a cold atomic cloud. The force is perpendicular to the
velocity of the cold atomic cloud, and zero for the cloud at rest. Our novel
concept is straightforward to implement in a large volume, for a broad range of
velocities, and can be extended to different geometries.Comment: are welcom
Synthetic Lorentz force in classical atomic gases via Doppler effect and radiation pressure
We theoretically predict a novel type of synthetic Lorentz force for
classical (cold) atomic gases, which is based on the Doppler effect and
radiation pressure. A fairly uniform and strong force can be constructed for
gases in macroscopic volumes of several cubic millimeters and more. This opens
the possibility to mimic classical charged gases in magnetic fields, such as
those in a tokamak, in cold atom experiments.Comment: are welcom
Laser assisted tunneling in a Tonks-Girardeau gas
We investigate the applicability of laser assisted tunneling in a strongly
interacting one-dimensional Bose gas (the Tonks-Girardeau gas) in optical
lattices. We find that the stroboscopic dynamics of the Tonks-Girardeau gas in
a continuous Wannier-Stark-ladder potential, supplemented with laser assisted
tunneling, effectively realizes the ground state of one-dimensional hard-core
bosons in a discrete lattice with nontrivial hopping phases. We compare
observables that are affected by the interactions, such as the momentum
distribution, natural orbitals and their occupancies, in the time-dependent
continuous system, to those of the ground state of the discrete system.
Stroboscopically, we find an excellent agreement, indicating that laser
assisted tunneling is a viable technique for realizing novel ground states and
phases with hard-core one-dimensional Bose gases.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure
Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Strong Synthetic Magnetic Field
Extensions of Berry's phase and the quantum Hall effect have led to the
discovery of new states of matter with topological properties. Traditionally,
this has been achieved using gauge fields created by magnetic fields or spin
orbit interactions which couple only to charged particles. For neutral
ultracold atoms, synthetic magnetic fields have been created which are strong
enough to realize the Harper-Hofstadter model. Despite many proposals and major
experimental efforts, so far it has not been possible to prepare the ground
state of this system. Here we report the observation of Bose-Einstein
condensation for the Harper-Hofstadter Hamiltonian with one-half flux quantum
per lattice unit cell. The diffraction pattern of the superfluid state directly
shows the momentum distribution on the wavefuction, which is gauge-dependent.
It reveals both the reduced symmetry of the vector potential and the twofold
degeneracy of the ground state. We explore an adiabatic many-body state
preparation protocol via the Mott insulating phase and observe the superfluid
ground state in a three-dimensional lattice with strong interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Supplement: 6 pages, 4 figure
Topolectrical-circuit realization of topological corner modes
Quantized electric quadrupole insulators have recently been proposed as novel quantum states of matter in two spatial dimensions. Gapped otherwise, they can feature zero-dimensional topological corner mid-gap states protected by the bulk spectral gap, reflection symmetries and a spectral symmetry. Here we introduce a topolectrical circuit design for realizing such corner modes experimentally and report measurements in which the modes appear as topological boundary resonances in the corner impedance profile of the circuit. Whereas the quantized bulk quadrupole moment of an electronic crystal does not have a direct analogue in the classical topolectrical-circuit framework, the corner modes inherit the identical form from the quantum case. Due to the flexibility and tunability of electrical circuits, they are an ideal platform for studying the reflection symmetry-protected character of corner modes in detail. Our work therefore establishes an instance where topolectrical circuitry is employed to bridge the gap between quantum theoretical modelling and the experimental realization of topological band structures