We simulate a one dimensional fermionic optical lattice to analyse heating due to non-adiabatic lattice loading. Our simulations reveal that, similar to the bosonic case, density redistribution effects are the major cause of heating in harmonic traps. We suggest protocols to modulate the local density distribution during the process of lattice loading, in order to reduce the excess energy. Our numerical results confirm that linear interpolation of the trapping potential and/or the interaction strength is an efficient method of doing so, bearing practical applications relevant to experiments.
We propose a method to directly measure the temperature of a gas of weakly interacting fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice. This technique relies on Raman spectroscopy and is applicable to experimentally relevant temperature regimes. Additionally, we show that a similar spectroscopy scheme can be used to obtain information on the quasiparticle properties and Hubbard bands of the metallic and Mott-insulating states of interacting fermionic spin mixtures. These two methods provide experimentalists with novel probes to accurately characterize fermionic quantum gases confined to optical…
In the quest to reach lower temperatures of ultra-cold gases in optical lattice experiments, non-adiabaticites during lattice loading are one of the limiting factors that prevent the same low temperatures to be reached as in experiments without lattice. Simulating the loading of a bosonic quantum gas into a one-dimensional optical lattice with and without a trap, we find that the redistribution of atomic density inside a global confining potential is by far the dominant source of heating. Based on these results we propose to adjust the trapping potential during loading to minimize changes to t…
Combining experiments and numerical simulations, we investigate the redistribution of quasi-momentum in a gas of atoms trapped in an optical lattice when the lattice depth is rapidly reduced. We find that interactions lead to significant momentum redistribution on millisecond timescales, thereby invalidating previous assumptions regarding adiabaticity. We show that this phenomenon is driven by the presence of low-momentum particle-hole excitations in an interacting system. Our results invalidate bandmapping as an equilibrium probe in interacting gases.
We study the attractive Hubbard model with mass imbalance to clarify low temperature properties of the fermionic mixtures in the optical lattice. By combining dynamical mean-field theory with the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulation, we discuss the competition between the superfluid and density wave states at half filling. By calculating the energy and the order parameter for each state, we clarify that the coexisting (supersolid) state, where the density wave and superfluid states are degenerate, is realized in the system. We then determine the phase diagram at finite temperatures.
We investigate the formation of three-body bound states (trimers) in two-component Fermi gases confined in one dimensional optical lattice with spin-dependent tunneling rates. The binding energy and the effective mass of the trimer are obtained from the solution of the Mattis integral equation generalized to the case of unequal Bloch masses. We show that this equation admits multiple solutions corresponding to excited bound states, which are only stable for large mass asymmetry.
We propose a minimal model to study the real-time dynamics of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory coupled to fermionic matter in a cold atom quantum simulator setup. We show that dynamical correlators of the gauge fields can be measured in experiments studying the time-evolution of two pairs of impurities, and suggest the protocol for implementing the model in cold atom experiments. Further, we discuss a number of unexpected features found in the integrable limit of the model, as well as its extensions to a non-integrable case. A potential experimental implementation of our model in the latt…
We analyze a ultracold fermionic atom system in a three dimensional optical lattice with a confinement harmonic potential, using the Hubbard model, and time-dependent Gutzwiller variational approach for numerical calculation. Our study is focused on the time evolution of the particle transfer when the lattice potential is modulated by adding a periodic one. The choice of the parameters such as the modulation frequency and amplitude and the particle number affects the particle transfer. We calculate the time evolution of the variance in the particle distribution, and show its dependence on the …
We model a system of ultracold fermionic dipolar molecules on a two-dimensional square lattice. Assuming that the molecules are in their nondegenerate hyperfine ground state, and that the dipole moment is polarized perpendicular to the plane (as in the recent experiments on 40K-87Rb molecules), we approximate these molecules as spinless fermions with long range repulsive dipolar interactions. We use mean field theory to obtain the restricted phase diagram as a function of the filling, the strength of interaction and the temperature. We find a number of ordered density wave phases in the system…
We study theoretically many-body equilibrium magnetic phases and corresponding thermodynamic characteristics of ultracold three-component fermionic mixtures in optical lattices described by the SU(3)-symmetric single-band Hubbard model. Our analysis is based on the generalization of the exact diagonalization solver for multicomponent mixtures that is used in the framework of the dynamical mean-field theory. It allows us to obtain a finite-temperature phase diagram with the corresponding transition lines to magnetically ordered phases at filling one particle per site (1/3 band filling) in simpl…
Three-component fermionic optical lattice systems are investigated in dynamical mean-field theory for the Hubbard model. Solving the effective impurity model by means of continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulations in the Nambu formalism, we find that the $s$-wave superfluid state proposed recently is indeed stabilized in the repulsively interacting case and appears along the first-order phase boundary between the metallic and paired Mott states in the paramagnetic system. The BCS-BEC crossover in the three-component fermionic system is also addressed.
We show how dissipative dynamics can give rise to pairing for two-component fermions on a lattice. In particular, we construct a "parent" Liouvillian operator so that a BCS-type state of a given symmetry, e.g. a d-wave state, is reached for arbitrary initial states in the absence of conservative forces. The system-bath couplings describe single-particle, number conserving and quasi-local processes. The pairing mechanism crucially relies on Fermi statistics. We show how such Liouvillians can be realized via reservoir engineering with cold atoms representing a driven dissipative dynamics.
We report on the observation of anti-ferromagnetic correlations of ultracold fermions in a variety of optical lattice geometries that are well described by the Hubbard model, including dimers, 1D chains, ladders, isolated and coupled honeycomb planes, as well as square and cubic lattices. The dependence of the strength of spin correlations on the specific geometry is experimentally studied by measuring the correlations along different lattice tunneling links, where a redistribution of correlations between the different lattice links is observed. By measuring the correlations in a crossover bet…
We compute the integrated doublon production rate in response to a lattice modulation for two component fermions in an optical lattice. We derive a general formula for the integrated intensity, valid in the presence of inhomogeneous potentials such as the trap, which gives the integrated intensity in terms of equal time correlation functions only. Such a formula is thus well suited for direct numerical calculations. We show that, in the limit of large repulsion for commensurate fillings, or for temperature ranges for which the hopping is incoherent, the integrated doublon spectrum is directly …
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 …
We propose a simple method to detect the antiferromagnetic (AF) state of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice by combining a time-of-flight (TOF) imaging method and a Feshbach resonance. In this scheme, the nontrivial dynamics of fermionic atoms during the imaging process works as a probe with respect to the breaking of the translational symmetry in the AF state. Precise numerical simulations demonstrate that the characteristic oscillatory dynamics induced by the scattering process that transfers an AF ordering vector appears in TOF images, which can be easily observed experimentally.
We study superfluidity of strongly repulsive fermionic atoms in optical lattices. The atoms are paired up through a correlated tunneling mechanism, which induces superfluidity when repulsive nearest-neighbor interactions are included in the Hubbard model. This paired superfluid is a metastable state which persists for a long time as the pair-broken process is severely suppressed. The mean-field phase diagram and low energy excitations are investigated in a square lattice system. Intriguingly, spontaneous superflows may appear in the ground state of a triangular optical lattice system due to an…
We study ultracold fermionic atoms trapped in a three dimensional optical lattice by combining the real-space dynamical mean-field approach with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulations. For a spin-unpolarized system we show results the density and pair potential profile in the trap for a range of temperatures. We discuss how a polarized superfluid state is spatially realized in the spin-polarized system with harmonic confinement at low temperatures and present the local particle density, local magnetization, and pair potential.
We determine the superfluid transition temperatures $T_c$ and the ground states of the attractive Hubbard model and find new insulating phases associated with non-integer filling at sufficiently strong pairing attraction $|U|$. These states, distinct from band and Mott insulating phases, derive from pair localization; pair hopping at large $|U|$ and high densities is impeded by inter-site, inter-pair repulsive interactions. The best way to detect the breakdown of superfluidity is using fermionic optical lattices which should reveal new forms of ``bosonic'' order, reflecting ground state pairin…
We investigate the superfluid state of repulsively interacting three-component (color) fermionic atoms in optical lattices. When the anisotropy of the three repulsive interactions is strong, atoms of two of the three colors form Cooper pairs and atoms of the third color remain a Fermi liquid. An effective attractive interaction is induced by density fluctuations of the third-color atoms. This superfluid state is stable against changes in filling close to half filling. We determine the phase diagrams in terms of temperature, filling, and the anisotropy of the repulsive interactions.
We discuss the master equation approach to diffusive current of bosonic or fermionic carriers in one- and two-dimensional lattices. This approach is shown to reproduce all known results of the linear response theory, including the integer quantum Hall effect for fermionic carriers. The main advantage of the approach is that it allows to calculate the current beyond the linear response regime where new effects are found. In particular, we show that the Hall current can be inverted by changing orientation of the static force (electric field) relative to the primary axes of the lattice.
We propose a method for measuring the temperature of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice potential from the intensity of the scattered light in the far-field diffraction pattern. We consider a single-component gas in a tightly-confined two-dimensional lattice, illuminated by far off-resonant light driving a cycling transition. Our calculations show that thermal correlations of the fermionic atoms generate fluctuations in the intensity of the diffraction pattern of light scattered from the atomic lattice array and that this signal can be accurately detected above the shot noise using a lens t…
We present a scheme to implement a Fermi-Hubbard-like model in ultracold atoms in optical lattices and analyze the topological features of its ground state. In particular, we show that the ground state for appropriate parameters has a large overlap with a lattice version of the bosonic Laughlin state at filling factor one half. The scheme utilizes laser assisted and normal tunnelling in a checkerboard optical lattice. The requirements on temperature, interactions, and hopping strengths are similar to those needed to observe the Néel antiferromagnetic ordering in the standard Fermi-Hubbard mode…
We investigate the effects of a repulsive three-body interaction on the Mott transition of the repulsively interacting three-component fermionic atoms in optical lattices by means of the self-energy functional approach. We find that the three-body repulsion hardly affects the qualitative features of the Mott transition, because the three-body repulsion does not compete with the two-body repulsions. When the three-body repulsion is extremely strong, the triple occupancy vanishes in the Fermi liquid state. This situation is equivalent to that caused by strong three-body losses. Our results imply…
Programmable Fermionic Quantum Processors with Globally Controlled Lattices
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck(因斯布鲁克大学理论物理研究所);Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences(奥地利科学院量子光学与量子信息研究所);Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics(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)
The Pauli exclusion principle is one of the most fundamental manifestations of quantum statistics. Here, we report on its local observation in a spin-polarized degenerate gas of fermions in an optical lattice. We probe the gas with single-site resolution using a new generation quantum gas microscope avoiding the common problem of light induced losses. In the band insulating regime, we measure a strong local suppression of particle number fluctuations and a low local entropy per atom. Our work opens a new avenue for studying quantum correlations in fermionic quantum matter both in and out of eq…
We study the finite temperature properties of two-component fermionic atoms trapped in a two-dimensional optical lattice. We apply the self-energy functional approach to the two-dimensional Hubbard model with a harmonic trapping potential, and systematically investigate the thermodynamic properties of this system. We find that entropy and grand potential provide evidence of a crossover between the Mott insulating and metallic phases at certain temperatures. In addition, we find that entropy exhibits a cusp-like anomaly at lower temperatures, suggesting a second or higher order antiferromagneti…
We investigate the attractive Hubbard model in infinite spatial dimensions at quarter filling. By combining dynamical mean-field theory with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulations in the Nambu formalism, we directly deal with the superfluid phase in the population imbalanced system. We discuss the low energy properties in the polarized superfluid state and the pseudogap behavior in the vicinity of the critical temperature.
We demonstrate site-resolved imaging of individual fermionic lithium-6 atoms in a 2D optical lattice. To preserve the density distribution during fluorescence imaging, we simultaneously cool the atoms with 3D Raman sideband cooling. This laser cooling technique, demonstrated here for the first time for lithium-6 atoms, also provides a pathway to rapid low-entropy filling of an optical lattice. We are able to determine the occupation of individual lattice sites with a fidelity >95%, enabling direct, local measurement of particle correlations in Fermi lattice systems. This ability will be instru…
We investigate the Mott transitions of three-component (colors) repulsive fermionic atoms in optical lattices using the dynamical mean field theory. We find that for SU(3) symmetry breaking interactions the Mott transition occurs at incommensurate half filling. As a result, a characteristic Mott insulating state appears, where paired atoms with two different colors and atoms with the third color are localized at different sites. We also find another Mott state where atoms with two different colors are localized at different sites and atoms with the third color remain itinerant. We demonstrate …
We investigate three-component (colors) repulsive fermionic atoms in optical lattices using the dynamical mean field theory. Depending on the anisotropy of the repulsive interactions, either a color density-wave state or a color selective staggered state appears at half filling. In the former state, pairs of atoms with two of the three colors and atoms with the third color occupy different sites alternately. In the latter state, atoms with two of the three colors occupy different sites alternately and atoms with the third color are itinerant throughout the system. When the interactions are iso…
We present a simple scheme for implementing a one-dimensional (1D) magnetic-flux lattice of ultracold fermionic spin-$1/2$ atoms. The resulting tight-binding model supports gapped and gapless topological phases, and chiral currents for Meissner and vortex phases. Its single-particle spectra exhibit topological flat bands at small flux, and the flatness sensitively depends on hopping strength. An effective $p$-wave interaction arises in a $s$-wave paired superfluid. Treating atomic internal states as forming a synthetic dimension and balancing the interplay of magnetic flux and Zeeman field, ou…
We generalize the application of small polaron theory to ultracold gases of Ref. [\onlinecite{jaksch_njp1}] to the case of Bose-Fermi mixtures, where both components are loaded into an optical lattice. In a suitable range of parameters, the mixture can be described within a Bogoliubov approach in the presence of fermionic (dynamic) impurities and an effective description in terms of polarons applies. In the dilute limit of the slow impurity regime, the hopping of fermionic particles is exponentially renormalized due to polaron formation, regardless of the sign of the Bose-Fermi interaction. Th…
We propose to use fermionic atoms with degenerate ground and excited internal levels ($F_g\rightarrow F_e$), loaded into the motional ground state of an optical lattice with two atoms per lattice site, to realize dark states with no radiative decay. The physical mechanism behind the dark states is an interplay of Pauli blocking and multilevel dipolar interactions. The dark states are independent of lattice geometry, can support an extensive number of excitations and can be coherently prepared using a Raman scheme taking advantage of the quantum Zeno effect. These attributes make them appealing…
We study a balanced two-component system of ultracold fermions in one dimension with attractive interactions and subject to a spin-dependent optical lattice potential of opposite sign for the two components. We find states with different types of modulated pairing order parameters which are conceptually similar to pi-phases discussed for superconductor-ferromagnet heterostructures. Increasing the lattice depth induces sharp transitions between states of different parity. While the origin of the order parameter oscillations is similar to the FFLO phase for paired states with spin imbalance, the…
We study a system of ultra-cold fermionic polar molecules in a two-dimensional square lattice interacting via both the long-ranged dipole-dipole interaction and a short-ranged on-site attractive interaction. Singlet superfluid, charge density wave, and supersolid phases are found to exist in the system. We map out the zero temperature phase diagram and find that the supersolid phase is considerably stabilized by the dipole-dipole interaction and thus can exist over a large region of filling factors. We study the melting of the supersolid phase with increasing temperature, map out a finite temp…
We present a simple approach to create a strong $p$-wave interaction for fermions in an optical lattice. The crucial step is that the combination of a lattice setup with different orbital states and $s$-wave interactions can give rise to a strong induced $p$-wave pairing. We identify different topological phases and demonstrate that the setup offers a natural way to explore the transition from Kitaev's Majorana wires to two-dimensional $p$-wave superfluids. We demonstrate how this design can induce Majorana modes at edge dislocations in the optical lattice, and we provide an experimentally fea…
We consider a cloud of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice described by a Hubbard model with an additional linear potential. While homogeneous interacting systems mainly show damped Bloch oscillations and heating, a finite cloud behaves differently: It expands symmetrically such that gains of potential energy at the top are compensated by losses at the bottom. Interactions stabilize the necessary heat currents by inducing gradients of the inverse temperature 1/T, with T<0 at the bottom of the cloud. An analytic solution of hydrodynamic equations shows that the width of the cloud increases wi…
We deduce an expression for the critical polarization P_C below which the FFLO-state emerges in one-dimensional lattices with spin-imbalanced populations. We provide and explore the phase diagram of unconfined chains as a function of polarization, interaction and particle density. For harmonically confined systems we supply a quantitative mapping which allows to apply our phase diagram also for confined chains. We find analytically, and confirm numerically, that the upper bound for the critical polarization is universal: P_C^{max}=1/3 for any density, interaction and confinement strength.
Recent advanced experimental implementations of optical lattices with highly tunable geometry open up new regimes for quantum many-body states of matter that previously had not been accessible. Here we introduce a symmetry-based method of utilizing the geometry of optical lattice to systematically control topologically non-trivial orbital hybridization. Such an orbital mixing leads to an unexpected and yet robust topological semimetal at single-particle level for a gas of fermionic atoms. When considering s-wave attractive interaction between atoms as for instance tuned by Feshbach resonance, …
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 propose a model to realize a fermionic superfluid state in an optical lattice circumventing the cooling problem. Our proposal exploits the idea of tuning the interaction in a characteristically low entropy state, a band-insulator in an optical bilayer system, to obtain a superfluid. By performing a detailed analysis of the model including fluctuations and augmented by a variational quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the ground state, we show that the superfluid state obtained has high transition temperature of the order of the hopping energy. Our system is designed to suppress other compet…
We examine quantum phases emerged by double degeneracy of $p$-orbital bands in attractive atomic Fermi gases loaded on a 1D optical lattice. Our numerical simulations by the density-matrix renormalization group predict the emergence of a state with a charge excitation gap, the Haldane insulator phase. A mapping onto an effective spin-$1$ model reveals its physical origin. Moreover, we show that population imbalance leads to richer diversity of the quantum phases, including a phase-separated polarized state. Finally, we study the effects of harmonic trap potential in this 1D chain.
We investigate the finite-temperature properties of attractive three-component (colors) fermionic atoms in optical lattices using a self-energy functional approach. As the strength of the attractive interaction increases in the low temperature region, a second-order transition occurs from a Fermi liquid to a color superfluid (CSF). In the strong attractive region, a first-order transition occurs from a CSF to a trionic state. In the high temperature region, a crossover between a Fermi liquid and a trionic state is observed with increasing the strength of the attractive interaction. The crossov…
We propose a scheme for digital quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories with dynamical fermions. Using a layered optical lattice with ancilla atoms that can move and interact with the other atoms (simulating the physical degrees of freedom), we obtain a stroboscopic dynamics which yields the four-body plaquette interactions, arising in models with $2+1$ and higher dimensions, without the use of perturbation theory. As an example we show how to simulate a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ model in $2+1$ dimensions.
We show that Majorana fermions (MFs) exist in two- and three-dimensional (2D,3D) fermionic optical lattices with strictly 1D spin-orbit coupling (SOC) which has already been realized in ex- periments. For a quasi-1D topological BCS superfluid, there are multiple MFs at each end which are topologically protected by a chiral symmetry. In the generalization to higher dimensions, the multiple MFs form a zero energy flat band. An additional experimentally tunable in-plane Zeeman field drives the system to a topological Fulde-Ferrell (FF) superfluid phase. We find that even though the multiple MFs a…
Optical lattices play a versatile role in advancing our understanding of correlated quantum matter. The recent implementation of orbital degrees of freedom in chequerboard and hexagonal optical lattices opens up a new thrust towards discovering novel quantum states of matter, which have no prior analogs in solid state electronic materials. Here, we demonstrate that an exotic topological semimetal emerges as a parity-protected gapless state in the orbital bands of a two-dimensional fermionic optical lattice. The new quantum state is characterized by a parabolic band-degeneracy point with Berry …
In this work, we present a result on the non-equilibrium dynamics causing equilibration and Gaussification of quadratic non-interacting fermionic Hamiltonians. Specifically, based on two basic assumptions - clustering of correlations in the initial state and the Hamiltonian exhibiting delocalizing transport - we prove that non-Gaussian initial states become locally indistinguishable from fermionic Gaussian states after a short and well controlled time. This relaxation dynamics is governed by a power-law independent of the system size. Our argument is general enough to allow for pure and mixed …
We review our theoretical analysis of repulsively interacting three-component fermionic atoms in optical lattices. We discuss quantum phase transitions at around half filling with a balanced population by focusing on Mott transitions, staggered ordering, and superfluidity. At half filling (with 3/2 atoms per site), characteristic Mott transitions are induced by the anisotropic interactions, where two-particle repulsions between any two of the three colors have different strengths. At half filling, two types of staggered ordered states appear at low temperatures depending on the anisotropy of t…
We study finite-temperature magnetic phases of three-component mixtures of ultracold fermions with repulsive interactions in optical lattices with simple cubic or square geometry by means of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). We focus on the case of one particle per site (1/3 band filling) at moderate interaction strength, where we observe a sequence of thermal phase transitions into two- and three-sublattice ordered states by means of the unrestricted real-space generalization of DMFT. From our quantitative analysis we conclude that long-range ordering in three-component mixtures should be o…
We investigate the finite-temperature properties of attractive three-component (colors) fermionic atoms in optical lattices using a self-energy functional approach. As the strength of the attractive interaction increases in the low-temperature region, we observe a second-order transition from a Fermi liquid to a color superfluid (CSF), where atoms from two of the three colors form Cooper pairs. In the strong attractive region, we observe a first-order transition from a CSF to a trionic state, where three atoms with different colors form singlet bound states. A crossover between a Fermi liquid …
Rapid advancements in the experimental capabilities with ultracold alkaline-earth-like atoms (AEAs) bring to a surprisingly near term the prospect of performing quantum simulations of spin models and lattice field theories exhibiting SU($N$) symmetry. Motivated in particular by recent experiments preparing high density samples of strongly interacting ${}^{87}$Sr atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice, we develop a low-energy effective theory of fermionic AEAs which exhibits emergent multi-body SU($N$)-symmetric interactions, where $N$ is the number of atomic nuclear spin levels. Our theo…
Motivated by recent experiments in low-dimensional trapped fermionic superfluids, we study a quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) superfluid with a population imbalance between two hyperfine states using an exact mean-field solution for the order parameter. When an effective "magnetic field" exceeds a critical value, the superfluid order parameter develops spatial inhomogeneity in the form of a soliton lattice. The soliton lattice generates a band of quasiparticle states inside the energy gap, which originate from the Andreev bound states localized at the solitons. Emergence of the soliton lattice…
We calculate experimentally relevant properties of trapped fermionic alkaline earth atoms in an optical lattice, modeled by the SU(N) Hubbard model. Our calculation is accurate when the temperature is much larger than the tunneling rate, similar to current regimes in ultracold atom experiments. In addition to exploring the Mott insulator-metal crossover, we calculate final temperatures achieved by the standard experimental protocol of adiabatically ramping from a non-interacting gas, as a function of initial gas temperature and final state lattice parameters. Of particular experimental interes…
We investigate the properties of the Lieb lattice, i.e a face-centered square lattice, subjected to external gauge fields. We show that an Abelian gauge field leads to a peculiar quantum Hall effect, which is a consequence of the single Dirac cone and the flat band characterizing the energy spectrum. Then we explore the effects of an intrinsic spin-orbit term - a non-Abelian gauge field - and demonstrate the occurrence of the quantum spin Hall effect in this model. Besides, we obtain the relativistic Hamiltonian describing the Lieb lattice at low energy and derive the Landau levels in the pres…
We demonstrate fluorescence microscopy of individual fermionic potassium atoms in a 527-nm-period optical lattice. Using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) cooling on the 770.1-nm D$_1$ transition of $^{40}$K, we find that atoms remain at individual sites of a 0.3-mK-deep lattice, with a $1/e$ pinning lifetime of $67(9)\,\rm{s}$, while scattering $\sim 10^3$ photons per second. The plane to be imaged is isolated using microwave spectroscopy in a magnetic field gradient, and can be chosen at any depth within the three-dimensional lattice. With a similar protocol, we also demonstrate…