We investigate the spectrum and eigenstates of ultracold fermionic atoms in the bilayer honeycomb optical lattice. In the low energy approximation, the dispersion relation has parabolic form and the quasiparticles are chiral. In the presence of the effective magnetic field, which is created for the system with optical means, the energy spectrum shows an unconventional Landau level structure. Furthermore, the experimental detection of the spectrum is proposed with the Bragg scattering techniques.
We discuss how to construct tight-binding models for ultra cold atoms in honeycomb potentials, by means of the maximally localized Wannier functions (MLWFs) for composite bands introduced by Marzari and Vanderbilt [1]. In particular, we work out the model with up to third-nearest neighbors, and provide explicit calculations of the MLWFs and of the tunneling coefficients for the graphene-lyke potential with two degenerate minima per unit cell. Finally, we discuss the degree of accuracy in reproducing the exact Bloch spectrum of different tight-binding approximations, in a range of typical exper…
We propose an experimental setup using ultracold atoms to implement a bilayer honeycomb lattice with Bernal stacking. In presence of a potential bias between the layers and at low densities, Fermions placed in this lattice form an annular Fermi sea. The presence of two Fermi surfaces leads to interesting patterns in Friedel oscillations and RKKY interactions in presence of impurities. Furthermore, a repulsive fermion-fermion interaction leads to a Stoner instability towards an incommensurate spin-density-wave order with a wave vector equal to the thickness of the Fermi sea. The instability occ…
Topologically nontrivial and trivial flat bands via weak and strong interlayer coupling in twisted bilayer honeycomb optical lattices for ultracold atoms
We demonstrate that low-lying triplon excitations in a bilayer Heisenberg antiferromagnet provide a promising avenue to realize magnetic analogs of twisted superfluid and supersolid phases that were recently reported for two-component ultracold atomic condensate in an optical lattice. Using a cluster Gutzwiller mean-field theory, we establish that Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMI), that are common in many quantum magnets, stabilize these phases in a magnetic system, in contrast to the pair hopping process that is necessary for ultracold atoms. The critical value of DMI for transition to…
Recent experiments in ultracold atoms and photonic analogs have reported the implementation of artificial gauge fields in lattice systems, facilitating the realization of topological phases. Motivated by such advances, we investigate the Haldane honeycomb lattice tight-binding model, for bosons with local interactions at the average filling of one boson per site. We analyze the ground state phase diagram and uncover three distinct phases: a uniform superfluid (SF), a chiral superfluid (CSF) and a plaquette Mott insulator with local current loops (PMI). Nearest-neighbor and next-nearest neighbo…
Probing disorder-driven topological phase transitions via topological edge modes with ultracold atoms in Floquet-engineered honeycomb lattices
Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik（马克斯·普朗克量子光学研究所）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität（慕尼黑大学物理学院）
Moiré droplet of ultracold Bose gases in a twisted-bilayer optical lattice
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；Department of Basic Courses, Naval University of Engineering（海军工程大学基础部）；State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Opto-Electronics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University（山西大学光电工程学院量子光学与光量子器件国家重点实验室极端光学协同创新中心）
We investigate the correspondence between the tight-binding Floquet Hamiltonian of a periodically modulated honeycomb lattice and the Haldane model. We show that - though the two systems share the same topological phase diagram, as reported in a breakthrough experiment with ultracold atoms in a stretched honeycomb lattice [Jotzu et al., Nature 515, 237 (2014)] - the corresponding Hamiltonians are not equivalent, the one of the shaken lattice presenting a much richer structure.
We propose a scheme to realize bosonic fractional quantum Hall conductance in shaken honeycomb optical lattices. This scheme does not require a very flat band, and the necessary long-range interaction relies on s-wave scattering, which is common in many ultracold-atom experiments. By filling the lattice at 1/4 with identical bosons under Feshbach resonance, two degenerate many-body ground states share one Chern number of 1 and correspond exactly to the fractional quantum Hall conductance of 1/2. Meanwhile, we prove that the fractional quantum Hall state can be prepared by adiabatically turning…
We show how dipolar interactions between dysprosium atoms in an optical lattice can be used to obtain fractional quantum Hall states. In our approach, dysprosium atoms are trapped one atom per site in a deep optical lattice with negligible tunneling. Microwave and spatially dependent optical dressing fields are used to define an effective spin-1/2 or spin-1 degree of freedom in each atom. Thinking of spin-1/2 particles as hardcore bosons, dipole-dipole interactions give rise to boson hopping, topological flat bands with Chern number 1, and the ν= 1/2 Laughlin state. Thinking of spin-1 particle…
We present a numerical study of the Hubbard model on simply stacked honeycomb and square lattices, motivated by a recent experimental realization of such models with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. We perform simulations with different interlayer coupling and interaction strengths and obtain Néel transition temperatures and entropies. We provide data for the equation of state to enable comparisons of experiments and theory. We find an enhancement of the short-range correlations in the anisotropic lattices compared to the isotropic cubic lattice, in parameter regimes suitable for the inter…
Using mean-field theory, we investigate the ground state properties of ultracold bosons loaded in a honeycomb lattice with on-site repulsive interactions and imbalanced nearest-neighbor hopping amplitudes. Taking into account correlations between strongly coupled neighboring sites through an improved Gutzwiller ansatz, we predict the existence of half-integer Mott-insulator phases, i.e. states with half-integer filling and vanishing compressibility. These insulating phases result from the interplay between quantum correlations and the topology of the honeycomb lattice, and could be easily addr…
The pairing properties of ultracold fermions, with an attractive interaction, loaded in a honeycomb (graphene-like) optical lattice are studied in a mean-field approach. We emphasize, in the presence of a harmonic trap, the unambiguous signatures of the linear dispersion relation of the band structure around half-filling (i.e. the massless Dirac fermions) in the local order parameter, in particular in the situations of either imbalance hoping parameters or imbalance populations. It can also be observed in the system response to external perturbation, for instance by measuring the pair destruct…
We show that the magnetic field produced by a chiral ferromagnetic film can be applied to control ultracold atoms. The film will act as a magnetic mirror or a reflection grating for ultracold atoms when it is in the helical phase or the skyrmion crystal phase respectively. By applying a bias magnetic field and a time-dependent magnetic field, one-dimensional or two-dimensional magnetic lattices including honeycomb, Kagome, triangular types can be created to trap the ultracold atoms. We have also discussed the trapping height, potential barrier, trapping frequency, and Majorana loss rate for ea…
The dynamics of a bilayer system of ultracold dipolar molecules exhibits classical and quantum glassy behavior, characterized by long tails in the relaxation time and dynamical heterogeneity. In the proposed setup, quantum fluctuations are of the order of thermal fluctuations and the degree of frustration can tuned by the interlayer distance. We present experimental accessible order parameters based on marker molecules, distinguished by properly chosen internal levels, and find quantum features of dynamical heterogeneity.
We devise experimental schemes able to mimic uniform and staggered magnetic fluxes acting on ultracold two-electron atoms, such as ytterbium atoms, propagating in a honeycomb lattice. The atoms are first trapped into two independent state-selective triangular lattices and are further exposed to a suitable configuration of resonant Raman laser beams. These beams induce hops between the two triangular lattices and make atoms move in a honeycomb lattice. Atoms traveling around each unit cell of this honeycomb lattice pick up a nonzero phase. In the uniform case, the artificial magnetic flux susta…
Ultracold Fermi gases trapped in honeycomb optical lattices provide an intriguing scenario, where relativistic quantum electrodynamics can be tested. Here, we generalize this system to non-Abelian quantum electrodynamics, where massless Dirac fermions interact with effective non-Abelian gauge fields. We show how in this setup a variety of topological phase transitions occur, which arise due to massless fermion pair production events, as well as pair annihilation events of two kinds: spontaneous and strongly-interacting induced. Moreover, such phase transitions can be controlled and characteriz…
Supersolid phases as a result of a coexistence of superfluid and density ordered checkerboard phases are predicted to appear in ultracold Fermi molecules confined in a bilayer array of two-dimensional square optical lattices. We demonstrate the existence of these phases within the inhomogeneous mean-field approach. In particular, we show that tuning the interlayer separation distance at a fixed value of the chemical potential produces different fractions of superfluid, density ordered, and supersolid phases.
Tight-binding models for ultracold atoms in optical lattices can be properly defined by using the concept of maximally localized Wannier functions for composite bands. The basic principles of this approach are reviewed here, along with different applications to lattice potentials with two minima per unit cell, in one and two spatial dimensions. Two independent methods for computing the tight-binding coefficients - one ab initio, based on the maximally localized Wannier functions, the other through analytic expressions in terms of the energy spectrum - are considered. In the one dimensional cas…
We investigate magnetic properties of strongly interacting four component spin-3/2 ultracold fermionic atoms in the Mott insulator limit with one particle per site in an optical lattice with honeycomb symmetry. In this limit, atomic tunneling is virtual, and only the atomic spins can exchange. We find a competition between symmetry breaking and liquid like disordered phases. Particularly interesting are valence bond states with bond centered magnetizations, situated between the ferromagnetic and conventional valence bond phases. In the framework of a mean-field theory, we calculate the phase d…
Interacting many-body systems combining confined and extended dimensions, such as ladders and few layer systems are characterized by enhanced quantum fluctuations, which often result in interesting collective properties. Recently two-dimensional bilayer systems, such as twisted bilayer graphene or ultracold atoms, have sparked a lot of interest because they can host rich phase diagrams, including unconventional superconductivity. Here we present a theoretical proposal for realizing high temperature pairing of fermions in a class of bilayer Hubbard models. We introduce a general, highly efficie…
We study superconducting properties of population-imbalanced ultracold Fermi mixtures in the honeycomb lattice that can be effectively described by the spin-imbalanced attractive Hubbard model in the presence of a Zeeman magnetic field. We use the mean-field theory approach to obtain ground state phase diagrams including some unconventional superconducting phases such as the Fulde--Ferrell--Larkin--Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase. We show that this phase is characterized by atypical behaviour of the Cooper pairs total momentum in the external magnetic field. We show that the momentum changes its valu…
We report on Bloch-Zener oscillations of an ultracold Fermi gas in a tunable honeycomb lattice. The quasi-momentum distribution of the atoms is measured after sequentially passing through two Dirac points. We observe a double-peak feature in the transferred fraction to the second band, both as a function of the band gap at the Dirac points and the quasi-momentum of the trajectory. Our results are in good agreement with a simple analytical model based on two successive Landau-Zener transitions. Owing to the variation of the potential gradient over the cloud size, coherent Stückelberg oscillatio…
We propose a scheme to dynamically synthesize a space-periodic effective magnetic field for neutral atoms by time-periodic magnetic field pulses. When atomic spin adiabatically follows the direction of the effective magnetic field, an adiabatic scalar potential together with a geometric vector potential emerges for the atomic center-of-mass motion, due to the Berry phase effect. While atoms hop between honeycomb lattice sites formed by the minima of the adiabatic potential, complex Peierls phase factors in the hopping coefficients are induced by the vector potential, which facilitate a topolog…
SU(N) symmetric fermions on a lattice, which can be realized in ultracold-atom-based quantum simulators, have very promising prospects for realizing exotic states of matter. Here we present the ground state phase diagram of the repulsive SU(3) Hubbard model on a honeycomb lattice at 1/3 filling obtained from infinite projected entangled pair states tensor network calculations. In the strongly interacting limit the ground state has plaquette order. Upon decreasing the interaction strength $U/t$ we find a first order transition at $U/t=7.2(2)$ into a dimerized, color-ordered state, which extends…
Motivated by the recent experimental realization of the Haldane model by ultracold fermions in an optical lattice, we investigate phase diagrams of the hard-core Bose-Hubbard model on a honeycomb lattice. This model is closely related with a spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic (AF) quantum spin model. Nearest-neighbor (NN) hopping amplitude is positive and it prefers an AF configurations of phases of Bose-Einstein condensates. On the other hand, an amplitude of the next-NN hopping depends on an angle variable as in the Haldane model. Phase diagrams are obtained by means of an extended path-integral Mon…
This work theoretically explores how to emulate twisted double bilayer graphene with ultracold atoms in multiorbital optical lattices. In particular, the quadratic band touching of Bernal stacked bilayer graphene is emulated using a square optical lattice with $p_x$, $p_y$, and $d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbitals on each site, while the effects of a twist are captured through the application of an incommensurate potential. The quadratic band touching is stable until the system undergoes an Anderson like delocalization transition in momentum space, which occurs concomitantly with a strongly renormalized sin…
We propose an experimentally feasible setup with ultracold alkaline earth atoms to simulate the dynamics of U(1) lattice gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions with a Chern-Simons term. To this end we consider the ground state properties of spin-5/2 alkaline earth fermions in a honeycomb lattice. We use the Gutzwiller projected variational approach in the strongly repulsive regime in the case of filling 1/6. The ground state of the system is a chiral spin liquid state with $2π/3$ flux per plaquette, which spontaneously violates time reversal invariance. We demonstrate that due to the breaking of tim…
Ultracold fermions trapped in a honeycomb optical lattice constitute a versatile setup to experimentally realize the Haldane model [Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2015 (1988)]. In this system, a non-uniform synthetic magnetic flux can be engineered through laser-induced methods, explicitly breaking time-reversal symmetry. This potentially opens a bulk gap in the energy spectrum, which is associated with a non-trivial topological order, i.e., a non-zero Chern number. In this work, we consider the possibility of producing and identifying such a robust Chern insulator in the laser-coupled honeycomb lattice…
In this paper, a topological superfluid phase with Chern number C=1 possessing gapless edge states and non-Abelian anyons is designed in a C=1 topological insulator proximity to an s-wave superfluid on an optical lattice with the effective gauge field and layer-dependent Zeeman field coupled to ultracold fermionic atoms pseudo spin. We also study its topological properties and calculate the phase stiffness by using the random-phase-approximation approach. Finally we derive the temperature of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition by means of renormalized group theory. Owning to the existence of no…
We study a class of SU(N) Heisenberg models, describing Mott insulators of fermionic ultra-cold alkaline earth atoms on the three-dimensional simple cubic lattice. Based on an earlier semiclassical analysis, magnetic order is unlikely, and we focus instead on a solvable large-N limit designed to address the competition among non-magnetic ground states. We find a rich phase diagram as a function of the filling parameter k, composed of a variety of ground states spontaneously breaking lattice symmetries, and in some cases also time reversal symmetry. One particularly striking example is a state …
Coherent control via periodic modulation, also known as Floquet engineering, has emerged as a powerful experimental method for the realization of novel quantum systems with exotic properties. In particular, it has been employed to study topological phenomena in a variety of different platforms. In driven systems, the topological properties of the quasienergy bands can often be determined by standard topological invariants, such as Chern numbers, which are commonly used in static systems. However, due to the periodic nature of the quasienergy spectrum, this topological description is incomplete…
Recently a scheme has been proposed for generating the 2D Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for ultracold atomic bosons in a bilayer geometry [S.-W. Su et al, Phys. Rev. A \textbf{93}, 053630 (2016)]. Here we investigate the superfluidity properties of a degenerate Fermi gas affected by the SOC in such a bilayer system. We demonstrate that a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state appears in the regime of small to moderate atom-light coupling. In contrast to the ordinary SOC, the FFLO state emerges in the bilayer system without adding any external fields or spin polarization. As the …
We show how to use polar molecules in an optical lattice to engineer quantum spin models with arbitrary spin S >= 1/2 and with interactions featuring a direction-dependent spin anisotropy. This is achieved by encoding the effective spin degrees of freedom in microwave-dressed rotational states of the molecules and by coupling the spins through dipolar interactions. We demonstrate how one of the experimentally most accessible anisotropies stabilizes symmetry protected topological phases in spin ladders. Using the numerically exact density matrix renormalization group method, we find that these …
We realize and study the ionic Hubbard model using an interacting two-component gas of fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice. The bipartite lattice has honeycomb geometry with a staggered energy-offset that explicitly breaks the inversion symmetry. Distinct density-ordered phases are identified using noise correlation measurements of the atomic momentum distribution. For weak interactions the geometry induces a charge density wave. For strong repulsive interactions we detect a strong suppression of doubly occupied sites, as expected for a Mott insulating state, and the externally brok…
