Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Many-Body Chiral Edge Currents and Sliding Phases of Atomic Spin Waves in Momentum-Space Lattice

Li, Yongqiang; Cai, Han; Wang, Da-wei; Li, Lin; Yuan, Jianmin; Li, Weibin

Many-Body Chiral Edge Currents and Sliding Phases of Atomic Spin Waves in Momentum-Space Lattice Thumbnail


Authors

Yongqiang Li

Han Cai

Da-wei Wang

Lin Li

Jianmin Yuan

WEIBIN LI weibin.li@nottingham.ac.uk
Associate Professor



Abstract

Collective excitations (spinwaves) of long-lived atomic hyperfine states can be synthesized into a Bose-Hubbard model in momentum space. We explore many-body ground states and dynamics of a two-leg momentum-space lattice formed by two coupled hyperfine states. Essential ingredients of this setting are a staggered artificial magnetic field engineered by lasers that couple the spinwave states, and a state-dependent long-range interaction, which is induced by laser-dressing a hyperfine state to a Rydberg state. The Rydberg dressed two-body interaction gives rise to a state-dependent blockade in momentum space, and can amplify staggered flux induced anti-chiral edge currents in the many-body ground state in the presence of magnetic flux. When the Rydberg dressing is applied to both hyperfine states, exotic sliding insulating and superfluid/supersolid phases emerge. Due to the Rydberg dressed long-range interaction, spinwaves slide along a leg of the momentum-space lattice without costing energy. Our study paves a route to the quantum simulation of topological phases and exotic dynamics with interacting spinwaves of atomic hyperfine states in momentum-space lattice. Introduction-Chiral edge states have played an important role in understanding quantum Hall effects [1-3] in solid state materials [4-6]. Ultracold atoms exposed to artificial gauge fields provide an ideal platform to simulate chiral edge currents in and out of equilibrium. This is driven by the ability to precisely control and in-situ monitor [7, 8] internal and external degrees of freedom, and atom-atom interactions [9]. Chiral dynamics [10-13] has been examined in the continuum space [14, 15], ladders [16-20], and optical lattices [21-28]. However, chiral states realized in the coordinate space require extremely low temperatures (typical in the order of a few kilo Hz) to protect the topological states from being destroyed by motional fluctuations [13]. Up to now, experimental observations of chiral phenomena in ultracold gases are largely at a single-particle level, due to unavoidable dis-sipations (e.g. spontaneous emission and heating) [9, 29-33], while the realization of many-body chiral edge currents in ultracold atoms is still elusive.

Citation

Li, Y., Cai, H., Wang, D., Li, L., Yuan, J., & Li, W. (2020). Many-Body Chiral Edge Currents and Sliding Phases of Atomic Spin Waves in Momentum-Space Lattice. Physical Review Letters, 124(14), https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.140401

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 16, 2020
Online Publication Date Apr 9, 2020
Publication Date Apr 9, 2020
Deposit Date Mar 18, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Physical Review Letters
Print ISSN 0031-9007
Electronic ISSN 1079-7114
Publisher American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 124
Issue 14
Article Number 140401
DOI https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.140401
Keywords General Physics and Astronomy
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4165882
Publisher URL https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.140401

Files




You might also like



Downloadable Citations