We present a general model allowing "quantum simulation" of one-dimensional Dirac models with 2- and 4-component spinors using ultracold atoms in driven 1D tilted optical latices. The resulting Dirac physics is illustrated by one of its well-known manifestations, Zitterbewegung. This general model can be extended and applied with great flexibility to more complex situations.
We suggest a method to simulate lattice compact Quantum Electrodynamics (cQED) using ultracold atoms in optical lattices, which includes dynamical Dirac fermions in 2+1 dimensions. This allows to test dynamical effects of confinement as well as 2d flux loops deformations and breaking, and to observe Wilson-loop area-law.
Recently, there has been much interest in simulating quantum field theory effects of matter and gauge fields. In a recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 275301 (2011)] a method for simulating compact Quantum Electrodynamics (cQED) using Bose-Einstein condensates has been suggested. We suggest an alternative approach, which relies on single atoms in an optical lattice, carrying 2l+1 internal levels, which converges rapidly to cQED as l increases. That enables the simulation of cQED in 2+1 dimensions in both the weak and the strong coupling regimes, hence allowing to probe confinement as well as ot…
We study the dynamics of ultracold atoms in tailored bichromatic optical lattices. By tuning the lattice parameters, one can readily engineer the band structure and realize a Dirac point, i.e. a true crossing of two Bloch bands. The dynamics in the vicinity of such a crossing is described by the one-dimensional Dirac equation, which is rigorously shown beyond the tight-binding approximation. Within this framework we analyze the effects of an external potential and demonstrate numerically that it is possible to demonstrate Klein tunneling with current experimental setups.
Quantum simulation is a powerful tool to study a variety of problems in physics, ranging from high-energy physics to condensed-matter physics. In this article, we review the recent theoretical and experimental progress in quantum simulation of Dirac equation with tunable parameters by using ultracold neutral atoms trapped in optical lattices or subject to light-induced synthetic gauge fields. The effective theories for the quasiparticles become relativistic under certain conditions in these systems, making them ideal platforms for studying the exotic relativistic effects. We focus on the reali…
Ultracold atomic lattice systems for simulating topological phases: A review
School of Physics and Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology(华中科技大学物理学院与量子科学与工程研究院);Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学微尺度物质科学国家研究中心与物理科学学院);Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Sciences and CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学上海量子科学研究中心与中科院量子信息重点实验室);Hefei National Laboratory(合肥国家实验室)
A quantum simulator based on ultracold optically trapped atoms for simulating the physics of atoms and molecules in ultrashort intense laser fields is introduced. The slowing down by about 13 orders of magnitude allows to watch in slow motion the tunneling and recollision processes that form the heart of attosecond science. The extreme flexibility of the simulator promises a deeper understanding of strong-field physics, especially for many-body systems beyond the reach of classical computers. The quantum simulator can experimentally straightforwardly be realized and is shown to recover the ion…
We study cavity optomechanics of a mixture of ultracold atoms with tunable nonlinear collisions. We show that atomic collisions provide linear couplings between fictitious condensate oscillators, leading to possibilities of achieving a globally coupled quantum optomechanical network with an integrated atom chip. Potential applications range from simulating collective nonequilibrium dynamics in fields well past physics to probing unique properties of quantum mixtures.
Some important features of the graphene physics can be reproduced by loading ultracold fermionic atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice with honeycomb symmetry and we address here its experimental feasibility. We analyze in great details the optical lattice generated by the coherent superposition of three coplanar running laser waves with respective angles $2π/3$. The corresponding band structure displays Dirac cones located at the corners of the Brillouin zone and close to half-filling this system is well described by massless Dirac fermions. We characterize their properties by accurately…
We propose a hierarchy set of minimal optical Raman lattice schemes toward the experimental realization of spin-orbit (SO) couplings of various types for ultracold atoms, including two-dimensional (2D) Dirac type of $C_4$ symmetry, 2D Rashba and 3D Weyl types. These schemes are well accessible with current cold-atom technology, and in particular, a long-lived Bose-Einstein condensation of the 2D Dirac SO coupling has been experimentally proved. The generation of 2D Rashba and 3D Weyl types has an exquisite request that two sources of laser beams have distinct frequencies of factor-two differen…
A two-dimensional spatially and temporally modulated Wannier-Stark system of ultracold atoms in optical lattices is shown to mimic the behavior of a Dirac particle. Suitable additional modulations generate an artificial gauge field which simulates a magnetic field and imposes the use of the full spinor-four Dirac equation.
We present theoretical as well as experimental results on resonantly enhanced quantum tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices both in the linear case of single particle dynamics and in the presence of atom-atom interactions. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of condensates in optical lattices for the dynamical control of tunneling and for simulating Hamiltonians originally used for describing solid state phenomena.
The Spinsim python package simulates spin-half and spin-one quantum mechanical systems following a time dependent Shroedinger equation. It makes use of numba.cuda, which is an LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) compiler for Nvidia Cuda compatible systems using GPU parallelization. Along with other optimizations, this allows for speed improvements from 3 to 4 orders of magnitude while staying just as accurate, compared to industry standard packages. It is available for installation on PyPI, and the source code is available on github. The initial use-case for the Spinsim will be to simulate quantu…
Cold atoms in optical lattices is the application of two formerly distinct aspects of physics: quantum gases from atomic physics and laser theory from quantum optics. Its use to simulate quantum phenomena and models in condensed matter physics is a growing field. The major goal is to use cold fermonic atoms in these superlattices for the simulations. We present here a theoretical proposal for simulating a spin ordering model using fermions. We demonstrate superexchange interaction in the double well and resonating valence bond (RVB) states in kagome lattice which is important for understanding…
Simulating quantum phenomena in extreme spacetimes in the laboratory represents a powerful approach to explore fundamental physics in the interplay of quantum field theory and general relativity. Here we propose to simulate the movement of a Dirac particle propagating with a superluminal velocity caused by the emergent Alcubierre warp drive spacetime using trapped ions. We demonstrate that the platform allows observing the tilted lightcone that manifests as a superluminal velocity, which is in agreement with the prediction of general relativity. Furthermore, the Zitterbewegung effect arising f…
We propose a method for simulating 2+1-d compact lattice quantum-electrodynamics (QED), using ultracold atoms in optical lattices. In our model local Bose-Einstein condensates' phases correspond to the electromagnetic vector-potential, and the fluctuations of the local number operators represent the conjugate electric field. The gauge invariant Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian is obtained as an effective low energy theory. The field is then coupled to external static charges. We show that in the strong coupling limit this gives rise to 'electric flux-tubes' and to confinement. The effect can be obse…
Observation of topological phases beyond two-dimension (2D) has been an open challenge for ultracold atoms. Here, we realize for the first time a 3D spin-orbit coupled nodal-line semimetal in an optical lattice and observe the bulk line nodes with ultracold fermions. The realized topological semimetal exhibits an emergent magnetic group symmetry. This allows to detect the nodal lines by effectively reconstructing the 3D topological band from a series of measurements of integrated spin textures, which precisely render spin textures on the parameter-tuned magnetic-group-symmetric planes. The det…
We present the first version of the QEngine, an open-source C++ library for simulating and controlling ultracold quantum systems using optimal control theory (OCT). The most notable systems presented here are Bose-Einstein condensates, many-body systems described by Bose-Hubbard type models, and two interacting particles. These systems can all be realized experimentally using ultracold atoms in various trapping geometries including optical lattices. In addition we provide a number of optimal control algorithms including the recently introduced GROUP method. The QEngine library has a strong foc…
We extent the recently developed Multi-Layer Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree method for Bosons (ML-MCTDHB) for simulating the correlated quantum dynamics of bosonic mixtures to the fermionic sector and establish a unifying approach for the investigation of the correlated quantum dynamics of mixture of indistinguishable particles, be it fermions or bosons. Relying on a multi-layer wave-function expansion, the resulting Multi-Layer Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree method for Mixtures (ML-MCTDHX) can be adapted to efficiently resolve system-specific intra- and inter-species c…
We propose a scheme for simulating 3+1, 2+1, 1+1 Dirac equation for a free spin-1/2 particle with superconducting josephson circuits consisting of five qubits, four qubits, two qubits respectively. In 3+1D and 2+1D, the flux qubit1 driven by a resonant pulse is in the superposition state of its own two eigenstatesis, and it is used as a bus to induce the (blue)red-sideband excitation consisting of a magnetic pulse acting resonantly on two levels of the flux qubit2 and the energy levels of one phase qubit, which yields two (Anti)Jaynes-Cummings interactions with one driving pulse and reduces th…
We propose an experimental scheme to realize the valley-dependent gauge fields for ultracold fermionic atoms trapped in a state-dependent square optical lattice. Our scheme relies on two sets of Raman laser beams to engineer the hopping between adjacent sites populated by two-component fermionic atoms. One set of Raman beams are used to realize a staggered π-flux lattice, where low energy atoms near two inequivalent Dirac points should be described by the Dirac equation for spin-1/2 particles. Another set of laser beams with proper Rabi frequencies are added to further modulate the atomic hopp…
The precise knowledge of the temperature of an ultracold lattice gas simulating a strongly correlated system is a question of both, fundamental and technological importance. Here, we address such question by combining tools from quantum metrology together with the study of the quantum correlations embedded in the system at finite temperatures. Within this frame we examine the spin-$1/2$ XY chain, first estimating, by means of the quantum Fisher information, the lowest attainable bound on the temperature precision. We then address the estimation of the temperature of the sample from the analysi…
Exact two-dimensional analytic wave functions for an arbitrary number $N$ of contact-interacting lowest-Landau-level (LLL) spinful fermions are derived with the use of combined numerical and symbolic computational approaches via analysis of exact Hamiltonian numerical diagonalization data. Closed-form analytic expressions are presented for two families of zero-interaction-energy states at given total angular momentum and total spin $0 \leq S \leq N/2$ in the neighborhood of the $ν=1$ filling, covering the range from the maximum density droplet to the first quasihole. Our theoretical prediction…
Quantum link models provide an alternative non-perturbative formulation of Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories. They are ideally suited for quantum simulation, for example, using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. This holds the promise to address currently unsolvable problems, such as the real-time and high-density dynamics of strongly interacting matter, first in toy-model gauge theories, and ultimately in QCD.
Dirac particle represents a fundamental constituent of our nature. Simulation of Dirac particle dynamics by a controllable quantum system using quantum walks will allow us to investigate the non-classical nature of dynamics in its discrete form. In this work, starting from a modified version of one-spatial dimensional general inhomogeneous split-step discrete quantum walk we derive an effective Hamiltonian which mimics a single massive Dirac particle dynamics in curved $(1+1)$ space-time dimension coupled to $U(1)$ gauge potential---which is a forward step towards the simulation of the unifica…
We present a joint experimental and theoretical analysis to assess the adiabatic experimental preparation of ultracold bosons in optical lattices aimed at simulating the three-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. Thermometry of lattice gases is realized from the superfluid to the Mott regime by combining the measurement of three-dimensional momentum-space densities with ab-initio quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations of the same quantity. The measured temperatures across the superfluid-to-Mott transition are in agreement with isentropic lines reconstructed via QMC for the experimental parameters o…
We propose an analog quantum simulator for simulating real time dynamics of $(1+1)$-d non-Abelian gauge theory well within the existing capacity of ultracold atom experiments. The scheme calls for the realization of a two-state ultracold fermionic system in a 1-dimensional bipartite lattice, and the observation of subsequent tunneling dynamics. Being based on novel loop string hadron formalism of SU(2) lattice gauge theory, this simulation technique is completely SU(2) invariant and simulates accurate dynamics of physical phenomena such as string breaking and/or pair production. The scheme is …
We study the topological properties of an extended Bose-Hubbard model with cyclically modulated hopping and on-site potential parameters, which can be realized with ultracold bosonic atoms in a one-dimensional optical superlattice. We show that the interacting bosonic chain at half filling and in the deep Mott insulating regime can simulate bosonic Chern insulators with a topological phase diagram similar to that of the Haldane model of noninteracting fermions. Furthermore, we explore the topological properties of the ground state by calculating the many-body Chern number, the quasiparticle en…
A 2D Fock-state lattice (FSL is constructed from the many-body states of two interacting two-mode quantum gases. By periodically driving the interspecies interactions and pulsing the tunneling between the two modes of each gas, a synthetic gauge field is generated. We derive an effective Hamiltonian in the short pulse limit which resembles the Harper-Hofstadter Hamiltonian where the magnetic flux per plaquette is controlled by the ratio of the interaction energy and the driving frequency. The quasispectrum of the Floquet operator of the driving sequence shows the celebrated Hofstadter's butter…
We propose to use ultracold fermionic atoms in one-dimensional optical lattices to quantum simulate the electronic transport in quantum cascade laser (QCL) structures. The competition between the coherent tunneling among (and within) the wells and the dissipative decay at the basis of lasing is discussed. In order to validate the proposed simulation scheme, we quantitatively address such competition in a simplified one-dimensional model. We show the existence of optimal relationships between the model parameters, maximizing the particle current, the population inversion (or their product), and…
We propose a scheme to simulate and explore Weyl semimetal physics with ultracold fermionic atoms in a two-dimensional square optical lattice subjected to experimentally realizable spin-orbit coupling and an artificial dimension from an external parameter space, which may increase experimental feasibility compared with the cases in three dimensional optical lattices. It is shown that this system with a tight-binding model is able to describe essentially three-dimensional Weyl semimetals with tunable Weyl points. The relevant topological properties are also addressed by means of the Chern numbe…
Magnetic monopole, a hypothetical elementary particle with isolated magnetic pole, is crucial for the quantization of electric charge. In recent years, analogues of magnetic monopoles, represented by topological defects in parameter spaces, have been studied in a wide range of physical systems. These works mainly focused on Abelian Dirac monopoles in spin-1/2 or non-Abelian Yang monopoles in spin-3/2 systems. Here we propose to realize three types of spin-1 topological monopoles and study their geometric properties using the parameter space formed by three hyperfine states of ultracold atoms c…
Advances with trapped ultracold atoms intensified interest in simulating complex physical phenomena, including quantum magnetism and transitions from itinerant to non-itinerant behavior. Here we show formation of antiferromagnetic ground states of few ultracold fermionic atoms in single and double well (DW) traps, through microscopic Hamiltonian exact diagonalization for two DW arrangements: (i) two linearly oriented one-dimensional, 1D, wells, and (ii) two coupled parallel wells, forming a trap of two-dimensional, 2D, nature. The spectra and spin-resolved conditional probabilities reveal for …
We study the response to an applied flux of an interacting system of Dirac-Weyl fermions confined in a one-dimensional (1D) ring. Combining analytical calculations with density-matrix renormalization group results, we show that tuning of interactions leads to a unique many-body system that displays either a suppression or an enhancement of the Drude weight - the zero-frequency peak in the ac conductivity - with respect to the non-interacting value. An asymmetry in the interaction strength between same- and different-pseudospin Dirac-Weyl fermions leads to Drude weight enhancement. Viceversa, s…
Two-dimensional $p+ i p$ superconductors and superfluids are systems that feature chiral behavior emerging from the Cooper pairing of electrons or neutral fermionic atoms with non-zero angular momentum. Their realization has been a longstanding goal because they offer great potential utility for quantum computation and memory. However, they have so far eluded experimental observation both in solid state systems as well as in ultracold quantum gases. Here, we propose to leverage the tremendous control offered by rotating two-dimensional trapped-ion crystals in a Penning trap to simulate the dyn…
A non-relativistic system such as an ultracold trapped ion may perform a quantum simulation of a Dirac equation dynamics under specific conditions. The resulting Hamiltonian and dynamics are highly controllable, but the coupling between momentum and internal levels poses some difficulties to manipulate the internal states accurately in wave packets. We use invariants of motion to inverse engineer robust population inversion processes with a homogeneous, time-dependent simulated electric field. This exemplifies the usefulness of inverse-engineering techniques to improve the performance of quant…
We argue that the Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian describing the physics of ultracold atoms on optical lattices in the presence of artificial non-Abelian gauge fields, is exactly equivalent to the gauge theory Hamiltonian describing Dirac fermions in the lattice. We show that it is possible to couple the Dirac fermions to an "artificial" gravitational field, i.e. to consider the Dirac physics in a curved spacetime. We identify the special class of spacetime metrics that admit a simple realization in terms of a Fermi-Hubbard model subjected to an artificial SU(2) field, corresponding to position depe…
A Quantum Walk Inspired Qubit Lattice Algorithm for Simulating Electromagnetic Wave Propagation and Scattering in Conservative and Dissipative Magnetized Plasmas
Algorithms are described for efficiently simulating quantum mechanical systems on quantum computers. A class of algorithms for simulating the Schrodinger equation for interacting many-body systems are presented in some detail. These algorithms would make it possible to simulate nonrelativistic quantum systems on a quantum computer with an exponential speedup compared to simulations on classical computers. Issues involved in simulating relativistic systems of Dirac and gauge particles are discussed.
A Quantum Walk (QW) simulating the flat $(1 + 2)$D Dirac Eq.\ on a spatial polar grid is constructed. Because fermions are represented by spinors, which do not constitute a representation of the rotation group, but rather of its double cover, the QW can only be defined globally on an extended spacetime where the polar angle extends from $0$ to $4 π$. The coupling of the QW with arbitrary electromagnetic fields is also presented. Finally, the cylindrical relativistic Landau levels of the Dirac Eq.\ are computed explicitly and simulated by the QW.
We study the properties of an ultracold Fermi gas loaded in an optical square lattice and subjected to an external and classical non-Abelian gauge field. We show that this system can be exploited as an optical analogue of relativistic quantum electrodynamics, offering a remarkable route to access the exotic properties of massless Dirac fermions with cold atoms experiments. In particular we show that the underlying Minkowski space-time can also be modified, reaching anisotropic regimes where a remarkable anomalous quantum Hall effect and a squeezed Landau vacuum could be observed.
An elegant method to circumvent quantum measurement backaction is the use of quantum mechanics free subsystems (QMFS), with one approach involving the use of two oscillators with effective masses of opposite signs. Since negative energies, and hence masses, are a characteristic of relativistic systems a natural question is to what extent QMFS can be realized in this context. Using the example of a one-dimensional Dirac oscillator we investigate conditions under which this can be achieved, and identify Zitterbewegung or virtual pair creation as the physical mechanism that fundamentally limits t…
Gauge fields that appear in models of high-energy and condensed matter physics are dynamical quantum degrees of freedom due to their coupling to matter fields. Since the dynamics of these strongly correlated systems is hard to compute, it was proposed to implement this basic coupling mechanism in quantum simulation platforms with the ultimate goal to emulate lattice gauge theories. Here, we realize the fundamental ingredient for a density-dependent gauge field acting on ultracold fermions in an optical lattice by engineering non-trivial Peierls phases that depend on the site occupations. We pr…
The physics of dirty bosons highlights the intriguing interplay of disorder and interactions in quantum systems, playing a central role in describing, for instance, ultracold gases in a random potential, doped quantum magnets, and amorphous superconductors. Here, we demonstrate how quantum computers can be used to elucidate the physics of dirty bosons in one and two dimensions. Specifically, we explore the disorder-induced delocalized-to-localized transition using adiabatic state preparation. In one dimension, the quantum circuits can be compressed to small enough depths for execution on curre…
Gauge fields are central in our modern understanding of physics at all scales. At the highest energy scales known, the microscopic universe is governed by particles interacting with each other through the exchange of gauge bosons. At the largest length scales, our universe is ruled by gravity, whose gauge structure suggests the existence of a particle - the graviton - that mediates the gravitational force. At the mesoscopic scale, solid-state systems are subjected to gauge fields of different nature: materials can be immersed in external electromagnetic fields, but they can also feature emergi…
The problem of simulating through quantum walks Dirac fermions in arbitrary curved space-times and coordinates is revisited, taking (1 + 1)D space-times as an example. A new shift or translation operator on the grid is introduced, to take into account arbitrary geometries. The new, generalised quantum walks built with this operator can simulate Dirac fermions in arbitrary curved space-times and coordinates, and their wave functions have exactly the same number of components as standard Dirac spinors, and not twice that number, as previously believed. In particular, in $(1 + 1)$D space-times, o…
A series of quantum search algorithms have been proposed recently providing an algebraic speedup compared to classical search algorithms from $N$ to $\sqrt{N}$, where $N$ is the number of items in the search space. In particular, devising searches on regular lattices has become popular in extending Grover's original algorithm to spatial searching. Working in a tight-binding setup, it could be demonstrated, theoretically, that a search is possible in the physically relevant dimensions 2 and 3 if the lattice spectrum possesses Dirac points. We present here a proof of principle experiment impleme…
Quantifying Quantum Computational Advantage on a Processor of Ultracold Atoms
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China(合肥微尺度物质科学国家研究中心和中国科学技术大学物理科学学院)
Dipolar parity anomaly can be induced by spatiotemporally weak-dependent energy-momentum separation of paired Dirac points in two-dimensional Dirac semimetals. Here we reveal topological currents arising from this kind of anomaly. A corresponding lattice model is proposed to emulate the topological currents by using two-component ultracold atoms in a two-dimensional optical Raman lattice. In our scheme, the topological currents can be generated by varying on-site coupling between the two atomic components in time and tuned via the laser fields. Moreover, we show that the topological particle c…
Floquet modulation has been widely used in optical lattices for coherent control of quantum gases, in particular for synthesizing artificial gauge fields and simulating topological matters. However, such modulation induces heating which can overwhelm the signal of quantum dynamics in ultracold atoms. Here we report that the thermal motion, instead of being a noise source, provides a new control knob in Floquet-modulated superradiance lattices, which are momentum-space tight-binding lattices of collectively excited states of atoms. The Doppler shifts combined with Floquet modulation provide eff…
Optical lattices have proven to be powerful systems for quantum simulations of solid state physics effects. Here we report a proof-of-principle experiment simulating effects predicted by relativistic wave equations with ultracold atoms in a bichromatic optical lattice that allows for a tailoring of the dispersion relation. We observe the analog of Klein-tunneling, the penetration of relativistic particles through a potential barrier without the exponential damping that is characteristic for nonrelativistic quantum tunneling. Both linear (relativistic) and quadratic (nonrelativistic) dispersion…
We present a method of simulating the Dirac equation in 3+1 dimensions for a free spin-1/2 particle in a single trapped ion. The Dirac bispinor is represented by four ionic internal states, and position and momentum of the Dirac particle are associated with the respective ionic variables. We show also how to simulate the simplified 1+1 case, requiring the manipulation of only two internal levels and one motional degree of freedom. Moreover, we study relevant quantum-relativistic effects, like the Zitterbewegung and Klein's paradox, the transition from massless to massive fermions, with the rel…