In this letter we address the issue how synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling can strongly affect three-body physics in ultracold atomic gases. We consider a system which consists of three fermionic atoms, including two spinless heavy atoms and one spin-1/2 light atom subjected to an isotropic SO coupling. We find that SO coupling can induce universal three-body bound states with negative s-wave scattering length at a smaller mass ratio, where no trimer bound state can exist if in the absence of SO coupling. The energies of these trimers are independent of high-energy cutoff, and therefore they are universal ones. Moreover, the resulting atom-dimer resonance can be effectively controlled by SO coupling strength. Our results can be applied to systems like ${}^6$Li and ${}^{40}$K mixture.
We study the two-body and three-body bound states in ultracold atomic mixtures with one of the atoms subjected to an isotropic spin-orbit (SO) coupling. We consider a system of two identical fermions interacting with one SO coupled atom. It is found that there can exist two types of three-body bound states, Efimov trimers and universal trimers. The Efimov trimers are energetically less favored by the SO coupling, which will finally merge into the atom-dimer threshold as increasing the SO coupling strength. Nevertheless, these trimers exhibit a new kind of discrete scaling law incorporating the…
We derive the complete mixing-demixing phase-diagram relevant to a bosonic binary mixture confined in a ring trimer and modeled within the Bose-Hubbard picture. The mixing properties of the two quantum fluids, which are shown to be strongly affected by the fragmented character of the confining potential, are evaluated by means of a specific indicator imported from Statistical Thermodynamics and are shown to depend only on two effective parameters incorporating the asymmetry between the heteronuclear species. To closely match realistic experimental conditions, our study is extended also beyond …
Under certain circumstances, three or more interacting particles may form bound states. While the general few-body problem is not analytically solvable, the so-called Efimov trimers appear for a system of three particles with resonant two-body interactions. The binding energies of these trimers are predicted to be universally connected to each other, independent of the microscopic details of the interaction. By exploiting a Feshbach resonance to widely tune the interactions between trapped ultracold lithium atoms, we find evidence for two universally connected Efimov trimers and their associat…
We investigate one dimensional attractive Fermi gases in spin-dependent optical lattices. We show that three-body bound states - "trimers" - exist as soon as the two tunneling rates are different. We calculate the binding energy and the effective mass of a single trimer. We then show numerically that for finite and commensurate densities $n_\uparrow=n_\downarrow/2$ an energy gap appears, implying that the gas is a one-component Luttinger liquid of trimers with suppressed superfluid ordering. The boundaries of this novel phase are given. We discuss experimental situations to test our prediction…
We theoretically investigate the prospects for photoassociation (PA) of Rb$_3$, in particular at close range. We provide an overview of accessible states and possible transitions. The major focus is placed on the calculation of equilibrium structures, the survey of spin-orbit effects and the investigation of transition dipole moments. Furthermore we discuss Franck-Condon overlaps and special aspects of trimers including the (pseudo) Jahn-Teller effect and the resulting topology of adiabatic potential-energy surfaces. With this we identify concrete and suitable PA transitions to potentially pro…
We consider the ground state of a single "spin-down" impurity atom interacting attractively with a "spin-up" atomic Fermi gas. By constructing variational wave functions for polarons, molecules and trimers, we perform a detailed study of the transitions between each of these dressed bound states as a function of mass ratio $r=m_\uparrow/m_\downarrow$ and interaction strength. We find that the presence of a Fermi sea enhances the stability of the $p$-wave trimer, which can be viewed as a Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) molecule that has bound an additional majority atom. For sufficientl…
Recently it has been proposed that three-component Fermi gases may exhibit a new type of crossover physics in which an unpaired Fermi sea of atoms smoothly evolves into that of trimers in addition to the ordinary BCS-BEC crossover of condensed pairs. Here we study its corresponding polaron problem in which a single impurity atom of one component interacts with condensed pairs of the other two components with equal populations. By developing a variational approach in the vicinity of a narrow Feshbach resonance, we show that the impurity atom smoothly changes its character from atom to trimer wi…
We consider two-component one-dimensional quantum gases at special imbalanced commensurabilities which lead to the formation of multimer (multi-particle bound-states) as the dominant order parameter. Luttinger liquid theory supports a mode-locking mechanism in which mass (or velocity) asymmetry is identified as the key ingredient to stabilize such states. While the scenario is valid both in the continuum and on a lattice, the effects of umklapp terms relevant for densities commensurate with the lattice spacing are also mentioned. These ideas are illustrated and confronted with the physics of t…
The optical nondestructive method for in situ detection of the bound states of ultracold polar molecules is developed. It promises a minimally destructive measurement scheme up to a physically exciting quantum non-demolition (QND) level. The detection of molecular complexes beyond simple pairs of quantum particles (dimers, known, e.g., from the BEC-BCS theory) is suggested, including three-body (trimers) and four-body (tertramers) complexes trapped by one-dimensional tubes. The intensity of scattered light is sensitive to the molecule number fluctuations beyond the mean-density approximation. …
In view of recent experiments in ultracold atomic systems, the photoassociation of Efimov trimers, composed of three identical bosons, is studied utilizing the multipole expansion. We study both the normal hierarchy case, where one-body current is dominant, and the strong hierarchy case, relevant for photoassociation in ultracold atoms, where two-body current is dominant. For identical particles in the normal hierarchy case, the leading contribution comes from the r^2 s-mode operator and from the quadrupole d-mode operator. The s-mode reaction is found to be dominant at low temperature, while …
We theoretically investigate the response of a two component Fermi gas to vector potentials which couple separately to the two spin components. Such vector potentials may be implemented in ultracold atomic gases using optically dressed states. Our study indicates that light-induced gauge potentials may be used to probe the properies of the interacting ultracold Fermi gas, providing. amongst other things, ways to measure the superfluid density and the strength of pairing.
We show how density dependent gauge potentials can be induced in dilute gases of ultracold atoms using light-matter interactions. We study the effect of the resulting interacting gauge theory and show how it gives rise to novel topological states in the ultracold gas. We find in particular that the onset of persistent currents in a ring geometry is governed by a critical number of particles. The density-dependent gauge potential is also found to support chiral solitons in a quasi-one-dimensional ultracold Bose gas.
We theoretically investigate ground-state properties of a three-component Fermi gas with pairwise contact interactions between different components near a triatomic resonance where bound trimers are about to appear. Using variational equations for in-medium two- and three-body cluster states in three dimensions, we elucidate the competition of pair and triple formations due to the Fermi surface effects. We present the ground-state phase diagram that exhibits transition from a Cooper pair to Cooper triple state and crossover from a Cooper triple to tightly bound trimer state at negative scatter…
We investigate color superfluidity and trimer formation in resonantly interacting SU(3) Fermi gases with a finite interaction range. The finite range is crucial to avoid the Thomas collapse and treat the Efimov effect occurring in this system. Using the Skorniakov-Ter-Martirosian (STM) equation with medium effects, we show the effects of the atomic Fermi distribution on the Efimov trimer energy at finite temperature. We show the critical temperature of color superfluidity within the non-selfconsistent $T$-matrix approximation (TMA). In this way, we can provide a first insight into the phase di…
We clarify some technical issues in the present generalized effective-potential Landau theory (GEPLT) that makes the GEPLT more consistent and complete. Utilizing this clarified GEPLT, we analytically study the quantum phase transitions of ultracold Bose gases in bipartite superlattices at zero termparture. The corresponding quantum phase boundaries are analytically calculated up to the third-order hopping, which are in excellent agreement with the quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations.
We consider the problem of three distinguishable fermions confined to a quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) geometry, where there is a strong harmonic potential in one direction. We go beyond previous theoretical work and investigate the three-body bound states (trimers) for the case where the two-body short-range interactions between fermions are unequal. Using the scattering parameters from experiments on ultracold $^{6}$Li atoms, we calculate the trimer spectrum throughout the crossover from two to three dimensions. We find that the deepest Efimov trimer in the $^{6}$Li system is unaffected by…
The object of study of this thesis are dipolar systems in the quantum degenerate regime. In general, dealing with many-body systems and evaluating their properties requires to deal with the Schrödinger equation. In the present study we employ different Monte Carlo methods, that are stochastic techniques that allow to find numerical solutions to it.
In this chapter, we describe scattering resonance phenomena in general, and focus on the mechanism of Feshbach resonances, for which a multi-channel treatment is required. We derive the dependence of the scattering phase shift on magnetic field and collision energy. From this, the scattering length and effective range coefficient can be extracted, expressions which are particularly useful for ultracold gases.
Ultracold atomic gases have developed into prime systems for experimental studies of Efimov three-body physics and related few-body phenomena, which occur in the universal regime of resonant interactions. In the last few years, many important breakthroughs have been achieved, confirming basic predictions of universal few-body theory and deepening our understanding of such systems. We review the basic ideas along with the fast experimental developments of the field, focussing on ultracold cesium gases as a well-investigated model system. Triatomic Efimov resonances, atom-dimer Efimov resonances…
In this work we investigate the unique properties of ultracold Bose gases in one and two dimensions. In two dimensions, we present simulations of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition using the projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation formalism. We confirm the presence of the BKT phase by observing algebraic decay in the first-order correlation function, unbinding of vortex pairs, and behaviour of the superfluid fraction. In one dimension we use a transverse Gaussian ansatz and the Lagrangian approach to derive an effective equation of motion for the one dimensional Bose gas at…
We show that the recently measured magnetic field dependence of three-body loss in a three-component mixture of ultracold $^6$Li atoms [1,2] can be explained by the presence of a universal trimer state. Previous work suggested a universal trimer state as a probable explanation, yet failed to get good agreement between theory and experiment over the whole range of magnetic fields. For our description we adapt the theory of Braaten and Hammer [3] for three identical bosons to the case of three distinguishable fermions by combining the three scattering lengths $a_{12},$ $a_{23}$ and $a_{13}$ betw…
This article provides a brief review of how various spectroscopies have been used to investitage many-body quantum phenomena in the context of ultracold Fermi gases. In particular, work done with RF spectroscopy, Bragg spectroscopy and lattice modulation spectroscopy is considered. The theoretical basis of these spectroscopies, namely linear response theory in the many-body quantum physics context is briefly presented. Experiments related to the BCS-BEC crossover, imbalanced Fermi gases, polarons, possible pseudogap and Fermi liquid behaviour and measuring the contact are discussed. Remaining …
We study the dissociation of Feshbach molecules in ultracold Fermi gases with spin-orbit (SO) coupling. Since SO coupling can induce quantum transition between the Feshbach molecules and the fully polarized Fermi gas, the Feshbach molecules can be dissociated by the SO coupling. We experimentally realized this new type of dissociation in ultracold gases of 40K atoms with SO coupling created by Raman beams, and observed that the dissociation rate is highly non-monotonic on both the positive and negative Raman-detuning sides. Our results show that the dissociation of Feshbach molecules can be co…
We review recent developments in the use of magnetic lattices as a complementary tool to optical lattices for trapping periodic arrays of ultracold atoms and degenerate quantum gases. Recent advances include the realisation of Bose-Einstein condensation in multiple sites of a magnetic lattice of one-dimensional microtraps, the trapping of ultracold atoms in square and triangular magnetic lattices, and the fabrication of magnetic lattice structures with sub-micron period suitable for quantum tunnelling experiments. Finally, we describe a proposal to utilise long-range interacting Rydberg atoms …
We study the virial relations for ultracold trapped two component Fermi gases in the case of short finite range interactions. Numerical verifications for such relations are reported through the BCS-BEC crossover. As an intermediate step, it is necessary to evaluate the partial derivatives of the many body energy with respect to the inverse of the scattering length and with respect to the interaction range. They are found to have extreme values at the unitary limit. The virial results are used to check the quality of the variational wave function involved in the calculations.
We propose an experimental scheme for studying the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) phenomenon in a quantum mechanical regime using ultracold atoms. Specifically, we suggest and analyze a setup of one-dimensional Bose gases confined into an optical lattice. The strength of quantum fluctuations is controlled by tuning the number of atoms per lattice sites (filling factor). By simulating the real-time dynamics of the Bose-Hubbard model by means of the exact numerical method of time-evolving block decimation, we investigate the effects of quantum fluctuations on the FPU recurrence and show that strong quan…
Investigating Friedel oscillations in ultracold gases would complement the studies performed on solid state samples with scanning-tunneling microscopes. In atomic quantum gases interactions and external potentials can be tuned freely and the inherently slower dynamics allow to access non-equilibrium dynamics following a potential or interaction quench. Here, we examine how Friedel oscillations can be observed in current ultracold gas experiments under realistic conditions. To this aim we numerically calculate the amplitude of the Friedel oscillations which a potential barrier provokes in a 1D …
We show that the Bose-Hubbard Model exhibits an increase in density with temperature at fixed pressure in the regular fluid regime and in the superfluid phase. The anomaly at the Bose-Einstein condensate is the first density anomaly observed in a quantum state. We propose that the mechanism underlying both the normal phase and the superfluid phase anomalies is related to zero point entropies and ground state phase transitions. A connection with the typical experimental scales and setups is also addressed. This key finding opens a new pathway for theoretical and experimental studies of water-li…
We demonstrate a novel class of trapping potentials, time-averaged adiabatic potentials (TAAP) which allows the generation of a large variety of traps and waveguides for ultracold atoms. Multiple traps can be coupled through controllable tunneling barriers or merged altogether. We present analytical expressions for pancake-, cigar-, and ring- shaped traps. The ring-geometry is of particular interest for guided matter-wave interferometry as it provides a perfectly smooth waveguide of controllable diameter, and thus a tunable sensitivity of the interferometer.
We describe how optical dressing can be used to generate bandstructures for ultracold atoms with non-trivial Z_2 topological order. Time reversal symmetry is preserved by simple conditions on the optical fields. We first show how to construct optical lattices that give rise to Z_2 topological insulators in two dimensions. We then describe a general method for the construction of three-dimensional Z_2 topological insulators. A central feature of our approach is a new way to understand Z_2 topological insulators starting from the nearly-free electron limit.
We show that a time-dependent magnetic field inducing a periodically modulated scattering length may lead to interesting novel scenarios for cold gases in optical lattices, characterized by a nonlinear hopping depending on the number difference at neighboring sites. We discuss the rich physics introduced by this hopping, including pair superfluidity, exactly defect-free Mott-insulator states for finite hopping, and pure holon and doublon superfluids. We also address experimental detection, showing that the introduced nonlinear hopping may lead in harmonically trapped gases to abrupt drops in t…
We study the quench dynamics of a two-component ultracold Fermi gas from the weak into the strong interaction regime, where the short time dynamics are governed by the exponential growth rate of unstable collective modes. We obtain an effective interaction that takes into account both Pauli blocking and the energy dependence of the scattering amplitude near a Feshbach resonance. Using this interaction we analyze the competing instabilities towards Stoner ferromagnetism and pairing.
Quantum phase slips are the primary excitations in one-dimensional superfluids and superconductors at low temperatures. They have been well characterized in most condensed-matter systems, and signatures of their existence has been recently observed in superfluids based on quantum gases too. In this review we briefly summarize the main results obtained on the investigation of phase slips from superconductors to quantum gases. In particular we focus our attention on recent experimental results of the dissipation in one-dimensional Bose superfluids flowing along a shallow periodic potential, whic…
Itinerant ferromagnetism in cold Fermi gases with repulsive interactions is studied applying the Jastrow-Slater approximation generalized to finite polarization and temperature. For two components at zero temperature a second order transition is found at $ak_F\simeq0.90$ compatible with QMC. Thermodynamic functions and observables such as the compressibility and spin susceptibility and the resulting fluctuations in number and spin are calculated. For trapped gases the resulting cloud radii and kinetic energies are calculated and compared to recent experiments. Spin polarized systems are recomm…
We introduce a density functional formalism to study the ground-state properties of strongly-correlated dipolar and ionic ultracold bosonic and fermionic gases, based on the self-consistent combination of the weak and the strong coupling limits. Contrary to conventional density functional approaches, our formalism does not require a previous calculation of the interacting homogeneous gas, and it is thus very suitable to treat systems with tunable long-range interactions. Due to its asymptotic exactness in the regime of strong correlation, the formalism works for systems in which standard mean-…
Weyl fermion, also referred to as pseudo-magnetic monopole in momentum space, is an undiscovered massless elementary particle with half-integer spin predicted according to relativistic quantum field theory. Motivated by the recent experimental observation of Weyl semimetal band in ultracold Bose gases with Raman-assisted 3D spin-orbit coupling, we investigate the properties and possible observation of Weyl fermions in the low-energy quasi-particle excitations of ultracold Fermi gases. Following a previous suggestion that the existing Raman lattice scheme can be readily generalized to fermionic…
We study the collapse of ultracold fermionic gases into inhomogeneous states due to strong dipolar interaction in both 2D and 3D. Depending on the dimensionality, we find that two different types of inhomogeneous states are stabilized once the dipole moment reaches a critical value $d>d_c$: the {\it stripe phase} and {\it phase separation} between high and low densities. In 2D, we prove that the stripe phase is always favored for $d\gtrsim d_c$, regardless of the microscopic details of the system. In 3D, the one-loop perturbative calculation suggests that the same type of instability leads to …
We study experimentally the dissipative dynamics of ultracold bosonic gases in a dynamic disorder potential with tunable correlation time. First, we measure the heating rate of thermal clouds exposed to the dynamic potential and present a model of the heating process, revealing the microscopic origin of dissipation from a thermal, trapped cloud of bosons. Second, for Bose-Einstein condensates, we measure the particle loss rate induced by the dynamic environment. Depending on the correlation time, the losses are either dominated by heating of residual thermal particles or the creation of excita…
We consider a gas of bosons in a bichromatic optical lattice at finite temperatures. As the amplitude of the secondary lattice grows, the single-particles eigenstates become localized. We calculate the canonical partition function using exact methods for the noninteracting and strongly interacting limit and analyze the statistical properties of the superfluid phase, localized phase and the strongly interacting gas. We show that those phases may be distinguished in experiment using off-resonant light scattering.
The recent experimental realization of synthetic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) opens a new avenue for exploring novel quantum states with ultracold atoms. However, in experiments for generating two-dimensional SOC (e.g., Rashba type), a perpendicular Zeeman field, which opens a band gap at the Dirac point and induces many topological phenomena, is still lacking. Here we theoretically propose and experimentally realize a simple scheme for generating two-dimension SOC and a perpendicular Zeeman field simultaneously in ultracold Fermi gases by tuning the polarization of three Raman lasers that couple…
We study the Bose-Einstein condensate phase transition of three-dimensional ultracold bosons with isotropic Rashba spin-orbit coupling. Investigating the structure of Ginzburg-Landau free energy as a function of the condensate density, we show, within the Bogoliubov approximation, that the condensate phase transition is first order with a jump in the condensate density. We calculate the transition temperature and the jump in the condensate density at the transition for large spin-orbit coupling, where the transition temperature depends linearly on the density of particles. Finally, we discuss …
We propose an effective Ising spin chain constructed with dipolar quantum gases confined in a one-dimensional optical superlattice. Mapping the motional degrees of freedom of a single particle in the lattice onto a pseudo-spin results in effective transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields. This effective Ising spin chain exhibits a quantum phase transition from a paramagnetic to a single-kink phase as the dipolar interaction increases. Particularly in the single-kink phase,a magnetic kink arises in the effective spin chain and behaves as a quasi-particle in a pinning potential exerted by the…
This Dissertation presents results of a thorough study of ultracold bosonic and fermionic gases in three-dimensional and quasi-one-dimensional systems. Although the analyses are carried out within various theoretical frameworks (Gross-Pitaevskii, Bethe ansatz, local density approximation, etc.) the main tool of the study is the Quantum Monte Carlo method in different modifications (variational Monte Carlo, diffusion Monte Carlo, fixed-node Monte Carlo methods). We benchmark our Monte Carlo calculations by recovering known analytical results (perturbative theories in dilute limits, exactly solv…
Ultracold atomic Fermi gases can be tuned to interact strongly, where they display spectroscopic signatures above the superfluid transition reminiscent of the pseudogap in cuprates. However, the extent of the analogy can be questioned, since thermodynamic quantities in the low temperature spin-imbalanced normal state can be described successfully using Fermi liquid theory. Here we present spin susceptibility measurements across the interaction strength-temperature phase diagram using a novel radiofrequency technique with ultracold $^6\textrm{Li}$ gases. For all significant interaction strength…
We present two Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) algorithms for systems of ultracold quantum gases featuring synthetic spin-orbit interactions. The first one is a discrete spin generalization of the T- moves spin-orbit DMC, which provides an upper bound to the fixed-phase energy. The second is a spin-integrated DMC method which recovers the fixed-phase property by avoiding the definition of the effective Hamiltonian involved in the T-moves approach. The latter is a more accurate method but it is restricted to spin-independent two-body interactions. We report a comparison between both algorithms for …
Cooling atomic gases into strongly correlated quantum phases requires estimates of the entropy to perform thermometry and establish viability. We construct an ansatz partition function for models of Laughlin states of atomic gases by combining high temperature series expansions with exact diagonalization. Using the ansatz we find that entropies required to observe Laughlin correlations with bosonic gases are within reach of current cooling capabilities.
Anderson localization has been observed for a variety of media, including ultracold atomic gases with speckle disorder in one and three dimensions. However, observation of Anderson localization in a two-dimensional geometry for ultracold gases has been elusive. We show that a cause of this difficulty is the relatively high percolation threshold of a speckle potential in two dimensions, resulting in strong classical localization. We propose a realistic point-like disorder potential that circumvents this percolation limit with localization lengths that are experimentally observable. The percolat…
Motivated by recent experimental advances in ultracold atomic gases placed in cavities, we study the influence of the atom-cavity coupling on the Fermi gases trapped in optical lattices. By adiabatic elimination of the cavity photon field, the atom-cavity coupling gives rise to effective long-range interactions. It results in a variety of two-body scattering processes, during which the atomic pairs can acquire an additional center-of-mass momentum. This reveals the possibility of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superfluids in which the atomic pairing momentum is nonzero. By inspecting …
We use exact four-boson scattering equations in the momentum-space framework to study the universal properties of shallow Efimov tetramers and their dependence on the two-boson scattering length. We demonstrate that, in contrast to previous predictions, the shallow tetramer in a particular experimentally unexplored regime is not an unstable bound state but an inelastic virtual state. This leads to a resonant behaviour of the atom-trimer scattering length and thereby to a resonant enhancement of the trimer relaxation in ultracold atom-trimer mixtures.
We show that simple laser configurations can give rise to "optical flux lattices", in which optically dressed atoms experience a periodic effective magnetic flux with high mean density. These potentials lead to narrow energy bands with non-zero Chern number. Optical flux lattices will greatly facilitate the achievement of the quantum Hall regime for ultracold atomic gases.
We study a new type of Fermi polaron induced by an impurity interacting with an ultracold Fermi superfluid. Due to the three-component nature of the system, the polaron can become trimer-like with a non-universal energy spectrum. We identify multiple avoided crossings between impurity- and trimer-like solutions in both the attractive and the repulsive polaron spectra. In particular, the widths of avoided crossings gradually increase as the Fermi superfluid undergoes a crossover from the BCS side towards the BEC side, which suggests instabilities towards three-body losses. Such losses can be re…
The recent advances in single atom detection and manipulation in experiments with ultracold quantum gases are reviewed. The discussion starts with the basic principles of trapping, cooling and detecting single ions and atoms. The realization of single atom detection in ultracold quantum gases is presented in detail and the employed methods, which are based on light scattering, electron scattering, field ionization and direct neutral particle detection are discussed. The microscopic coherent manipulation of single atoms in a quantum gas is also covered. Various examples are given in order to hi…
Considering one-body and two-body currents, we study the photoassociation and photodissociation of universal bosonic trimers. Analyzing the relative importance of these currents we identify two physical scenarios (i) Normal hierarchy, where naive power counting holds and the one-body current dominates, and (ii) Strong hierarchy, where the one-body current is suppressed. For both scenarios we observe that at the high frequency tail, the response function exhibits log periodic oscillations in transition to or from any continuum state regardless of the reaction partial wave channel. In contrast, …
