Realizing and characterizing interacting topological phases in synthetic quantum systems is a formidable challenge. Here, we propose a Floquet protocol to realize the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with power-law decaying interactions. Based on analytical and numerical arguments, we show that this model features a quantum phase transition from a liquid to a valence bond solid that spontaneously breaks lattice translational symmetry and is reminiscent of the Majumdar-Ghosh state. The different phases can be probed dynamically by measuring the evolution of a fully dimerized state. We moreover introduce an interferometric protocol to characterize the topological excitations and the bulk topological invariants of the interacting many-body system.
Quantum-optical techniques allow for generating controllable spin-spin interactions between ions, making trapped ions an ideal quantum simulator of Heisenberg chains. A single parameter, the detuning of the Raman coupling, allows to switch between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic chains, and to modify the range of the interactions. On the antiferromagnetic side, the system can be tuned from an extreme long-range limit, in which any pair of ions interacts with almost equal strength, to interactions with a $1/r^3$ decay. By exact diagonalization, we study how a system of up to 20 ions behaves…
We introduce a theoretical scheme for the analog quantum simulation of long-range XYZ models using current trapped-ion technology. In order to achieve fully-tunable Heisenberg-type interactions, our proposal requires a state-dependent dipole force along a single vibrational axis, together with a combination of standard resonant and detuned carrier drivings. We discuss how this quantum simulator could explore the effect of long-range interactions on the phase diagram by combining an adiabatic protocol with the quasi-periodic drivings and test the validity of our scheme numerically. At the isotr…
Zero-point energy of a trapped ultracold Fermi gas at unitarity: squeezing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and suppressing the Pauli principle to produce a superfluid state
Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma（俄克拉荷马大学霍默·L·道奇物理与天文学系）
Fermionic atoms trapped in a double well potential are an ideal setting to study fundamental exchange mechanisms. We use exact diagonalization and complementary analytic calculations to demonstrate that two trapped fermions deliver a minimal model of the direct exchange mechanism. This is an ideal quantum simulator of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet, exposes the competition between covalent and ionic bonding, and can create, manipulate, and detect quantum entanglement. Three trapped atoms form a faithful simulator of the double exchange mechanism that is the fundamental building block behind ma…
We theoretically analyze a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with trapped condensates, and find that it is surprisingly stable against the nonlinearity induced by inter-particle interactions. The phase sensitivity, which we study for number squeezed input states, can overcome the shot noise limit and be increased up to the Heisenberg limit provided that a Bayesian or Maximum-Likelihood phase estimation strategy is used. We finally demonstrate robustness of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer in presence of interactions against condensate oscillations and a realistic atom counting error.
We demonstrate how the spin-1/2 XYZ quantum Heisenberg model can be realized with bosonic atoms loaded in the p band of an optical lattice in the Mott regime. The combination of Bose statistics and the symmetry of the p-orbital wave functions leads to a nonintegrable Heisenberg model with antiferromagnetic couplings. Moreover, the sign and relative strength of the couplings characterizing the model are shown to be experimentally tunable. We display the rich phase diagram in the one-dimensional case and discuss finite size effects relevant for trapped systems. Finally, experimental issues relat…
We predict that exploiting spin-orbit coupling in a harmonically trapped spinor quantum gas can lead to scaling of the optimal measurement precision beyond the Heisenberg scaling. We show that quadratic scaling with the number of atoms can be facilitated via squeezed center-of-mass excitations of the atomic motion using a 1D spin-orbit coupled fermions or strongly interacting bosons (Tonks-Girardeau gas). Based on predictions derived from analytic calculations of the corresponding quantum Fisher information, we then introduce a protocol which overcomes the Heisenberg scaling (and limit) with h…
The static and dynamic properties of many-body quantum systems are often well described by collective excitations, known as quasiparticles. Engineered quantum systems offer the opportunity to study such emergent phenomena in a precisely controlled and otherwise inaccessible way. We present a spectroscopic technique to study artificial quantum matter and use it for characterizing quasiparticles in a many-body system of trapped atomic ions. Our approach is to excite combinations of the system's fundamental quasiparticle eigenmodes, given by delocalised spin waves. By observing the dynamical resp…
We consider a pair of twin atoms trapped in double-well potentials. For each atom, two orthogonal spatial modes are accessible: the states $ |L\rangle$ and $|R\rangle$ spatially localized in the left and right wells respectively. Furthermore the twin atoms are distinguishable thanks to an additional degree of freedom. We propose a method for experimentally quantifying the particle entanglement between these atoms which allows us to probe a violation of Bell's inequality. It is based on measuring the correlations in the atoms' momentum distribution. If the tunneling and the energy difference be…
We theoretically study the dynamical phase diagram of the Dicke model in both classical and quantum limits using large, experimentally relevant system sizes. Our analysis elucidates that the model features dynamical critical points that are distinct from previously investigated excited-state equilibrium transitions. Moreover, our numerical calculations demonstrate that mean-field features of the dynamics remain valid in the exact quantum dynamics, but we also find that in regimes where quantum effects dominate signatures of the dynamical phases and chaos can persist in purely quantum metrics s…
The highly controllable ultracold atoms in a one-dimensional (1D) trap provide a new platform for the ultimate simulation of quantum magnetism. In this regard, the Neel-antiferromagnetism and the itinerant ferromagnetism are of central importance and great interest. Here we show that these magnetic orders can be achieved in the strongly interacting spin-1/2 trapped Fermi gases with additional p-wave interactions. In this strong coupling limit, the 1D trapped Fermi gas exhibit an effective Heisenberg spin XXZ chain in the anisotropic p-wave scattering channels. For a particular p-wave attractio…
A solvable model of a generic trapped bosonic mixture, $N_1$ bosons of mass $m_1$ and $N_2$ bosons of mass $m_2$ trapped in an harmonic potential of frequency $ω$ and interacting by harmonic inter-particle interactions of strengths $λ_1$, $λ_2$, and $λ_{12}$, is discussed. It has recently been shown for the ground state [J. Phys. A {\bf 50}, 295002 (2017)] that in the infinite-particle limit, when the interaction parameters $λ_1(N_1-1)$, $λ_2(N_2-1)$, $λ_{12}N_1$, $λ_{12}N_2$ are held fixed, each of the species is $100\%$ condensed and its density per particle as well as the total energy per p…
Two generically different but universal dynamical quantum many-body behaviors are discovered by probing the stability of trapped fragmented bosonic systems with strong repulsive finite/long range inter-particle interactions. We use different time-dependent processes to destabilize the systems -- a sudden displacement of the trap is accompanied by a sudden quench of the strength of the inter-particle repulsion. A rather moderate non-violent evolution of the density in the first "topology-preserved" scenario is contrasted with a highly-non-equilibrium dynamics characterizing an explosive changes…
Turbulence, the complicated fluid behavior of nonlinear and statistical nature, arises in many physical systems across various disciplines, from tiny laboratory scales to geophysical and astrophysical ones. The notion of turbulence in the quantum world was conceived long ago by Onsager and Feynman, but the occurrence of turbulence in ultracold gases has been studied in the laboratory only very recently. Albeit new as a field, it already offers new paths and perspectives on the problem of turbulence. Herein we review the general properties of quantum gases at ultralow temperatures paying partic…
Twist-untwist protocols for quantum metrology consist of a serial application of: 1. unitary nonlinear dynamics (e.g., spin squeezing or Kerr nonlinearity), 2. parameterized dynamics $U(ϕ)$ (e.g., a collective rotation or phase space displacement), 3. time reversed application of step 1. Such protocols are known to produce states that allow Heisenberg scaling for experimentally accessible estimators of $ϕ$ even when the nonlinearities are applied for times much shorter than required to produce Schrödinger cat states. In this work, we prove that twist-untwist protocols provide the lowest estima…
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 …
Symmetries play a crucial role in the classification of topological phases of matter. Although recent studies have established a powerful framework to search for and classify topological phases based on symmetry indicators, there exists a large class of fragile topology beyond the description. The Euler class characterizing the topology of two-dimensional real wave functions is an archetypal fragile topology underlying some important properties, such as non-Abelian braiding of crossing nodes and higher-order topology. However, as a minimum model of fragile topology, the two-dimensional topolog…
We consider a one-dimensional trapped gas of strongly interacting few spin-1 atoms which can be described by an effective spin chain Hamiltonian. Away from the SU(3) integrable point, where the energy spectrum is highly degenerate, the rules of ordering and crossing of the energy levels and the symmetry of the eigenstates in the regime of large but finite repulsion have been elucidated. We study the spin-mixing dynamics which is shown to be very sensitive to the ratio between the two channel interactions g0/g2 and the effective spin chain transfers the quantum states more perfectly than the He…
We theoretically investigate the droplets formation in a tightly trapped one-dimensional dipolar gas of bosonic atoms. When the strength of the dipolar interaction becomes sufficiently attractive compared to the contact one, we show how a solitonic-like density profile evolves into a liquid-like droplet on increasing the number of particles in the trap. The incipient gas-liquid transition is also signalled by a steep increase of the breathing mode and a change in sign of the chemical potential. Upon a sudden release of the trap, varying the number of trapped atoms and the scattering length, th…
