It is generally admitted that in quantum mechanics, the electromagnetic potentials have physical interpretations otherwise absent in classical physics as illustrated by the Aharonov-Bohm effect. In 1984, Berry interpreted this effect as a geometrical phase factor. The same year, Wilczek and Zee generalized the concept of Berry phases to degenerate levels and showed that a non-Abelian gauge field arises in these systems. In sharp contrast with the Abelian case, spatially uniform non-Abelian gauge fields can induce particle noninertial motion. We explore this intriguing phenomenon with a degenerated Fermionic atomic gas subject to a two-dimensional synthetic SU(2) non-Abelian gauge field. We reveal the spin Hall nature of the noninertial dynamic as well as its anisotropy in amplitude and frequency due to the spin texture of the system. We finally draw the similarities and differences of the observed wave packet dynamic and the celebrated Zitterbewegung effect of the relativistic Dirac equation.
Recent cold atom experiments have realized models where each hyperfine state at an optical lattice site can be regarded as a separate site in a synthetic dimension. In such synthetic ribbon configurations, manipulation of the transitions between the hyperfine levels provide direct control of the hopping in the synthetic dimension. This effect was used to simulate a magnetic field through the ribbon. Precise control over the hopping matrix elements in the synthetic dimension makes it possible to change this artificial magnetic field much faster than the time scales associated with atomic motion…
In this article we present a pedagogical discussion of some of the optomechanical properties of a high finesse cavity loaded with ultracold atoms in laser induced synthetic gauge fields of different types. Essentially, the subject matter of this article is an amalgam of two sub-fields of atomic molecular and optical (AMO) physics namely, the cavity optomechanics with ultracold atoms and ultracold atoms in synthetic gauge field. After providing a brief introduction to either of these fields we shall show how and what properties of these trapped ultracold atoms can be studied by looking at the c…
The non-Abelian gauge fields play a key role in achieving novel quantum phenomena in condensed-matter and high-energy physics. Recently, the synthetic non-Abelian gauge fields have been created in the neutral degenerate Fermi gases, and moreover, generate many exotic effects. All the previous predictions can be well understood by the microscopic Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory. In this work, we establish an SU(2) Ginzburg-Landau theory for degenerate Fermi gases with the synthetic non-Abelian gauge fields. We firstly address a fundamental problem how the non-Abelian gauge fields, imposing ori…
The method of synthetic gauge potentials opens up a new avenue for our understanding and discovering novel quantum states of matter. We investigate the topological quantum phase transition of Fermi gases trapped in a honeycomb lattice in the presence of a synthetic non- Abelian gauge potential. We develop a systematic fermionic effective field theory to describe a topological quantum phase transition tuned by the non-Abelian gauge potential and ex- plore its various important experimental consequences. Numerical calculations on lattice scales are performed to compare with the results achieved …
We study the Mott phases and the superfluid-insulator transition of two-component ultracold bosons on a square optical lattice in the presence of a non-Abelian synthetic gauge field, which renders a SU(2) hopping matrix for the bosons. Using a resummed hopping expansion, we calculate the excitation spectra in the Mott insulating phases and demonstrate that the superfluid-insulator phase boundary displays a non-monotonic dependence on the gauge field strength. We also compute the momentum distribution of the bosons in the presence of the non-Abelian field and show that they develop peaks at non…
We study Wilson loops as a necessary tool for unambiguous identification of non-Abelian synthetic gauge fields, with attention to certain crucial but often overlooked features, such as the requirement of at least three distinct loops. We devise a method to determine the complete Wilson loop matrix from the time evolved amplitudes of the internal atomic states of laser-coupled ultracold atoms that does not require lattice confinement. The analysis is done in the context of a new cyclic model that can realize both Abelian and non-Abelian structures within a single configuration with continuous v…
We study the Feshbach resonance of spin-1/2 particles in the presence of a uniform synthetic non-Abelian gauge field that produces spin orbit coupling along with constant spin potentials. We develop a renormalizable quantum field theory that includes the closed channel boson which engenders the Feshbach resonance, in the presence of the gauge field. By a study of the scattering of two particles in the presence of the gauge field, we show that the Feshbach magnetic field, where the apparent low energy scattering length diverges, depends on the conserved centre of mass momentum of the two partic…
Emergence of fundamental forces from gauge symmetry is among our most profound insights about the physical universe. In nature, such symmetries remain hidden in the space of internal degrees of freedom of subatomic particles. Here we propose a way to realize and study gauge structures in real space, manifest in external degrees of freedom of quantum states. We present a model based on a ring-shaped lattice potential, which allows for both Abelian and non-Abelian constructs. Non trivial Wilson loops are shown possible via physical motion of the system. The underlying physics is based on the clo…
Topological phase engineering of neutral bosons loaded in an optical lattice opens a new window for manipulating of transport phenomena in such systems. Exploiting the Bose Hubbard model and using the magnetic Kubo formula proposed in this paper we show that the optical conductivity abruptly changes for different flux densities in the Mott phase. Especially, when the frequency of the applied field corresponds to the on-site boson interaction energy, we observe insulator or metallic behavior for a given Hofstadter spectrum. We also prove, that for different synthetic magnetic field configuratio…
The Hofstadter model exemplifies a large class of physical systems characterized by particles hopping on a lattice immersed in a gauge field. Recent advancements on various synthetic platforms have enabled highly-controllable simulations of such systems with tailored gauge fields featuring complex spatial textures. These synthetic gauge fields could introduce synthetic symmetries that do not appear in electronic materials. Here, in an SU(2) non-Abelian Hofstadter model, we theoretically show the emergence of multiple nonsymmorphic chiral symmetries, which combine an internal unitary anti-symme…
Fundamental forces of Nature are described by field theories, also known as gauge theories, based on a local gauge invariance. The simplest of them is quantum electrodynamics (QED), which is an example of an Abelian gauge theory. Such theories describe the dynamics of massless photons and their coupling to matter. However, in two spatial dimension (2D) they are known to exhibit gapped phases at low temperature. In the realm of quantum spin systems, it remains a subject of considerable debate if their low energy physics can be described by emergent gauge degrees of freedom. Here we present a cl…
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive study of the quantum magnetism in the Mott insulating phases of the 1D Bose-Hubbard model with abelian or non-abelian synthetic gauge fields, using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method. We focus on the interplay between the synthetic gauge field and the asymmetry of the interactions, which give rise to a very general effective magnetic model: a XYZ model with various Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions. The properties of the different quantum magnetic phases and phases transitions of this model are investigated.
We start by reviewing the concept of gauge invariance in quantum mechanics, for Abelian and Non-Ableian cases. Then we idescribe how the various gauge potential and field can be associated with the geometrical phase acquired by a quantum mechanical wave function while adiabatically evolving in a parameter space. Subsequently we show how this concept is exploited to generate light induced gauge field for neutral ultra cold bosonic atoms. As an example of such light induced Abelian and Non Abelian gauge field for ultra cold atoms we disucss ultra cold atoms in a rotating trap and creation of syn…
We study spreading wave packets in a disordered nonlinear ladder with broken time-reversal symmetry induced by synthetic gauge fields. The model describes the dynamics of interacting bosons in a disordered and driven optical ladder within a mean-field approximation. The second moment of the wave packet $m_{2} = g t^α$ grows subdiffusively with the universal exponent $α\simeq 1/3$ similar to the time-reversal case. However the prefactor $g$ is strongly modified by the field strength and shows a non-monotonic dependence. For a weak field, the prefactor increases since time-reversal enhanced back…
Cold neutral atoms provide a versatile and controllable platform for emulating various quantum systems. Despite efforts to develop artificial gauge fields in these systems, realizing a unique ideal-solenoid-shaped magnetic field within the quantum domain in any real-world physical system remains elusive. Here we propose a scheme to generate a "hairline" solenoid with an extremely small size around 1 micrometer which is smaller than the typical coherence length in cold atoms. Correspondingly, interference effects will play a role in transport. Despite the small size, the magnetic flux imposed o…
We study the bound states of two spin-$\half$ fermions interacting via a contact attraction (characterized by a scattering length) in the singlet channel in 3D space in presence of a uniform non-Abelian gauge field. The configuration of the gauge field that generates a Rashba type spin-orbit interaction is described by three coupling parameters $(λ_x, λ_y, λ_z)$. For a generic gauge field configuration, the critical scattering length required for the formation of a bound state is {\em negative}, i.e. shifts to the "BCS side" of the resonance. Interestingly, we find that there are special high-…
On increasing the coupling strength ($λ$) of a non-Abelian gauge field that induces a generalized Rashba spin-orbit interaction, the topology of the Fermi surface of a homogeneous gas of noninteracting fermions of density $ρ\sim \kf^3$ undergoes a change at a critical value, $λ_T \approx \kf$ [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 84}, 014512 (2011)]. In this paper we analyze how this phenomenon affects the size and shape of a cloud of spin-$\half$ fermions trapped in a harmonic potential such as those used in cold atom experiments. We develop an adiabatic formulation, including the concomitant Pancharatnam-Berry…
We consider the simulation of non-abelian gauge potentials in ultracold atom systems with atom-field interaction in the $Λ$ configuration where two internal states of an atom are coupled to a third common one with a detuning. We find the simulated non-abelian gauge potentials can have the same structures as those simulated in the tripod configuration if we parameterize Rabi frequencies properly, which means we can design spin-orbit coupling simulation schemes based on those proposed in the tripod configuration. We show the simulated spin-orbit coupling in the $Λ$ configuration can only be of a…
We investigate the ground state of interacting spin-$\half$ fermions (3D) at a finite density ($ρ\sim \kf^3$) in the presence of a uniform non-Abelian gauge field. The gauge field configuration (GFC) described by a vector $\blam \equiv (λ_x, λ_y, λ_z)$, whose magnitude $λ$ determines the gauge coupling strength, generates a generalized Rashba spin-orbit interaction. For a weak attractive interaction in the singlet channel described by a small negative scattering length $(\kf |\as| \lesssim 1)$, the ground state in the absence of the gauge field ($λ=0$) is a BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) supe…
We investigate few body physics in a cold atomic system with synthetic dimensions (Celi et al., PRL 112, 043001 (2014)) which realizes a Hofstadter model with long-ranged interactions along the synthetic dimension. We show that the problem can be mapped to a system of particles (with $SU(M)$ symmetric interactions) which experience an $SU(M)$ Zeeman field at each lattice site {\em and} a non-Abelian $SU(M)$ gauge potential that affects their hopping from one site to another. This mapping brings out the possibility of generating {\em non-local} interactions (interaction between particles at dif…
Bloch oscillations (BOs) are a fundamental phenomenon by which a wave packet undergoes a periodic motion in a lattice when subjected to an external force. Observed in a wide range of synthetic lattice systems, BOs are intrinsically related to the geometric and topological properties of the underlying band structure. This has established BOs as a prominent tool for the detection of Berry phase effects, including those described by non-Abelian gauge fields. In this work, we unveil a unique topological effect that manifests in the BOs of higher-order topological insulators through the interplay o…
The recent success of the NIST group in generating abelian gauge field in cold atoms has created opportunities to simulate electronic transports in solids using atomic gases. Very recently, the NIST group has also announced in a DARPA Meeting the creation of non-abelian gauge fields in a pseudo spin-1/2 Bose gas. While there have been considerable theoretical activities in synthetic gauge fields, non-abelian fields have not been generated until now. Here, we show that in a non-abelian gauge field, a spinor condensate will develop a spontaneous stripe structure in each spin component, reflectin…
We study quantum magnetism of interacting spinor bosons at integer fillings hopping in a square lattice in the presence of non-Abelian gauge fields. In the strong coupling limit, it leads to the Rotated ferromagnetic Heisenberg model (RFHM) which is a new class of quantum spin model. We introduce Wilson loops to characterize frustrations and gauge equivalent classes. For a special equivalent class, we identify a new spin-orbital entangled commensurate ground state. It supports not only commensurate magnons, but also a new gapped elementary excitation: in-commensurate magnons with two gap minim…
Synthetic horizons in an atomic chain: Horizon-induced effects and connections to quantum Hall systems
Aalto University（阿尔托大学）；Tampere University（坦佩雷大学）；Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics, IFW Dresden（德累斯顿亥姆霍兹中心IFW固体物理研究所）；Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat（维尔茨堡-德累斯顿卓越集群ct.qmat）；University of Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹大学）；TU Dresden（德累斯顿工业大学）
The study of the properties of quantum particles in a periodic potential subject to a magnetic field is an active area of research both in physics and mathematics; it has been and it is still deeply investigated. In this review we discuss how to implement and describe tunable Abelian magnetic fields in a system of ultracold atoms in optical lattices. After discussing two of the main experimental schemes for the physical realization of synthetic gauge potentials in ultracold set-ups, we study cubic lattice tight-binding models with commensurate flux. We finally examine applications of gauge pot…
Gauge fields, real or synthetic, are crucial for understanding and manipulation of physical systems. The associated geometric phases can be measured, for example, from the Aharonov--Bohm interference. So far, real-space realizations of gauge fields have been limited to Abelian (commutative) ones. Here we report an experimental synthesis of non-Abelian gauge fields in real space and the observation of the non-Abelian Aharonov--Bohm effect with classical waves and classical fluxes. Based on optical mode degeneracy, we break time-reversal symmetry in different manners---via temporal modulation an…
We study pairing formation and the appearance of induced spin-triplet p-wave superfluidity in dilute three-dimensional imbalanced Fermi gases in the presence of a uniform non-Abelian gauge field. This gauge field generates a synthetic Rashba-type spin-orbit interaction which has remarkable consequences in the induced p-wave pairing gaps. Without the synthetic gauge field, the p-wave pairing occurs in one of the components due to the induced (second-order) interaction via an exchange of density fluctuations in the other component. We show that this p-wave superfluid gap induced by density fluct…
Chiral edge states are a hallmark of quantum Hall physics. In electronic systems, they appear as a macroscopic consequence of the cyclotron orbits induced by a magnetic field, which are naturally truncated at the physical boundary of the sample. Here we report on the experimental realization of chiral edge states in a ribbon geometry with an ultracold gas of neutral fermions subjected to an artificial gauge field. By imaging individual sites along a synthetic dimension, we detect the existence of the edge states, investigate the onset of chirality as a function of the bulk-edge coupling, and o…
Engineering lattice models with tailored inter-site tunnelings and onsite energies could synthesize essentially arbitrary Riemannian surfaces with highly tunable local curvatures. Here, we point out that discrete synthetic Poincaré half-planes and Poincaré disks, which are created by lattices in flat planes, support infinitely degenerate eigenstates for any nonzero eigenenergies. Such Efimov-like states exhibit a discrete scaling symmetry and imply an unprecedented apparatus for studying quantum anomaly using hyperbolic surfaces. Furthermore, all eigenstates are exponentially localized in the …
Motivated by the experimental realization of synthetic spin-orbit coupling for ultracold atoms, we investigate the phase diagram of the Bose Hubbard model in a non-abelian gauge field in two dimensions. Using a strong coupling expansion in the combined presence of spin-orbit coupling and tunable interactions, we find a variety of interesting magnetic Hamiltonians in the Mott insulator (MI), which support magnetic textures such as spin spirals and vortex and Skyrmion crystals. An inhomogeneous mean field treatment shows that the superfluid (SF) phases inherit these exotic magnetic orders from t…
We analyze a tight-binding model of ultracold fermions loaded in an optical square lattice and subjected to a synthetic non-Abelian gauge potential featuring both a magnetic field and a translationally invariant SU(2) term. We consider in particular the effect of broken time-reversal symmetry and its role in driving non-trivial topological phase transitions. By varying the spin-orbit coupling parameters, we find both a semimetal/insulator phase transition and a topological phase transition between insulating phases with different numbers of edge states. The spin is not a conserved quantity of …
We theoretically investigate the effect of intertube tunneling in topological superfluid phases of a quasi-one-dimensional Fermi gas with a Rashba-type spin-orbit interaction. It is shown that the effective Hamiltonian is analogous to that of a nanowire topological superconductor with multibands. Using a hidden mirror symmetry in the system, we introduce a new topological number that ensures the existence of non-Abelian Majorana zero modes even in the presence of intertube tunneling. It is demonstrated from the full numerical calculation of self-consistent equations that some of Majorana modes…
Ultracold atoms in optical lattices serve as a tool to model different physical phenomena appearing originally in condensed matter. To study magnetic phenomena one needs to engineer synthetic fields as atoms are neutral. Appropriately shaped optical potentials force atoms to mimic charged particles moving in a given field. We present the realization of artificial gauge fields for the observation of anomalous Hall effect. Two species of attractively interacting ultracold fermions are considered to be trapped in a shaken two dimensional triangular lattice. A combination of interaction induced tu…
Protection of gauge invariance in experimental realizations of lattice gauge theories based on energy-penalty schemes has recently stimulated impressive efforts both theoretically and in setups of quantum synthetic matter. A major challenge is the reliability of such schemes in non-Abelian gauge theories where local conservation laws do not commute. Here, we show through exact diagonalization that non-Abelian gauge invariance can be reliably controlled using gauge-protection terms that energetically stabilize the target gauge sector in Hilbert space, suppressing gauge violations due to unitary…
Chiral Graviton Modes in Non-Abelian lattice Fractional Quantum Hall states
SISSA — International School for Advances Studies（国际高等研究院）；ICTP — The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics（阿卜杜斯·萨拉姆理论物理中心）；The University of Hong Kong（香港大学）；State Key Laboratory of Optical Quantum Materials（光学量子材料国家重点实验室）；New Cornerstone Science Lab（新基石科学实验室）；Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INFN, Sezione di Bologna（意大利国家核物理研究所博洛尼部分所）
We demonstrate the emergence of the non-Abelian geometric potentials and thus the three-dimensional (3D) spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for ultracold atoms without using the laser beams. This is achieved by subjecting an atom to a periodic perturbation which is the product of a position-dependent Hermitian operator $\hat{V}\left(\mathbf{r}\right)$ and a fast oscillating periodic function $f\left(ωt\right)$ with a zero average. To have a significant spin-orbit coupling (SOC), we analyze a situation where the characteristic energy of the periodic driving is not necessarily small compared to the drivi…
Time periodic driving serves not only as a convenient way to engineer effective Hamiltonians, but also as a means to produce intrinsically dynamical phases that do not exist in the static limit. A recent example of the latter are 2D chiral Floquet (CF) phases exhibiting anomalous edge dynamics that pump discrete packets of quantum information along one direction. In non-fractionalized systems with only bosonic excitations, this pumping is quantified by a dynamical topological index that is a rational number -- highlighting its difference from the integer valued invariant underlying equilibrium…
We study the quantum phases of bosons with repulsive contact interactions on a two-leg ladder in the presence of a uniform Abelian gauge field. The model realizes many interesting states, including Meissner phases, vortex-fluids, vortex-lattices, charge-density-waves and the biased-ladder phase. Our work focuses on the subset of these states that break a discrete symmetry. We use density matrix renormalization group simulations to demonstrate the existence of three vortex-lattice states at different vortex densities and we characterize the phase transitions from these phases into neighboring s…
Motivated by the recent experimental success in realizing synthetic spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atomic systems, we consider N-component atoms coupled to a non-Abelian SU(N) gauge field. More specifically, we focus on the case, referred to here as "SU(3) spin-orbit-coupling," where the internal states of three-component atoms are coupled to their momenta via a matrix structure that involves the Gell-Mann matrices (in contrast to the Pauli matrices in conventional SU(2) spin-orbit-coupled systems). It is shown that the SU(3) spin-orbit-coupling gives rise to qualitatively different phenomen…
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…
