Gediminas Juzeliūnas

Colloquium: Artificial gauge potentials for neutral atoms

When a neutral atom moves in a properly designed laser field, its center-of-mass motion may mimic the dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field, with the emergence of a Lorentz-like force. In this Colloquium the physical principles at the basis of this artificial (synthetic) magnetism are presented. The corresponding Aharonov-Bohm phase is related to the Berrys phase that emerges when the atom adiabatically follows one of the dressed states of the atom-laser interaction. Some manifestations of artificial magnetism for a cold quantum gas, in particular, in terms of vortex nucleation are discussed. The analysis is then generalized to the simulation of non-Abelian gauge potentials and some striking consequences are presented, such as the emergence of an effective spin-orbit coupling. Both the cases of bulk gases and discrete systems, where atoms are trapped in an optical lattice, are addressed.

Non-Abelian gauge potentials for ultracold atoms with degenerate dark states.

We show that the adiabatic motion of ultracold, multilevel atoms in spatially varying laser fields can give rise to effective non-Abelian gauge fields if degenerate adiabatic eigenstates of the atom-laser interaction exist. A pair of such degenerate dark states emerges, e.g., if laser fields couple three internal states of an atom to a fourth common one under pairwise two-photon-resonance conditions. For this so-called tripod scheme we derive general conditions for truly non-Abelian gauge potentials and discuss special examples. In particular we show that using orthogonal laser beams with orbital angular momentum an effective magnetic field can be generated that has a monopole component.

Synthetic 3D Spin-Orbit Coupling

We describe a method for creating a three-dimensional analogue to Rashba spin-orbit coupling in systems of ultracold atoms. This laser induced coupling uses Raman transitions to link four internal atomic states with a tetrahedral geometry, and gives rise to a Dirac point that is robust against environmental perturbations. We present an exact result showing that such a spin-orbit coupling in a fermionic system always gives rise to a molecular bound state.

Realistic Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling for neutral atoms

We describe a new class of atom-laser coupling schemes which lead to spin-orbit-coupled Hamiltonians for ultracold neutral atoms. By properly setting the optical phases, a pair of degenerate pseudospin (a linear combination of internal atomic) states emerge as the lowest-energy eigenstates in the spectrum and are thus immune to collisionally induced decay. These schemes use N cyclically coupled ground or metastable internal states. We focus on two situations: a three-level case and a four-level case, where the latter adds a controllable Dresselhaus contribution. We describe an implementation of the four-level scheme for {sup 87}Rb and analyze its sensitivity to typical laboratory noise sources. Last, we argue that the Rashba Hamiltonian applies only in the large intensity limit since any laser coupling scheme will produce terms nonlinear in momentum that decline with intensity.

Magnetically generated spin-orbit coupling for ultracold atoms

We present a new technique for producing two- and three-dimensional Rashba-type spin-orbit couplings for ultracold atoms without involving light. The method relies on a sequence of pulsed inhomogeneous magnetic fields imprinting suitable phase gradients on the atoms. For sufficiently short pulse durations, the time-averaged Hamiltonian well approximates the Rashba Hamiltonian. Higher order corrections to the energy spectrum are calculated exactly for spin-1/2 and perturbatively for higher spins. The pulse sequence does not modify the form of rotationally symmetric atom-atom interactions. Finally, we present a straightforward implementation of this pulse sequence on an atom chip.

Intermolecular energy transfer: Retardation effects

An extension of previous theoretical work on the unified theory of radiative and radiationless intermolecular energy transfer is presented. A generalized transfer rate accounting for molecular vibronic structure is derived, enabling the formal connection with the classical Forster formula to be fully established. The solution to an apparent paradox concerning the long‐range R−2 dependence of the intermolecular energy transfer rate is demonstrated. It is shown that the inverse square behavior should be modified by inclusion of an exponential factor due to the presence of other acceptors. A corrected Forster decay rate including an R−4 contribution, in addition to the conventional R−6 term, is obtained and the means of characterizing distinctive features of the unified approach are discussed with reference to some model systems. Finally the relation between retardation and quantum uncertainty effects in molecular energy transfer are considered.

The range dependence of fluorescence anisotropy in molecular energy transfer

In the theory of excitation energy transfer it is generally considered that species initially excited by photoabsorption transfer their energy to other molecules by two distinct mechanisms, known as radiative and radiationless energy transfer. Recently it has been shown that the two mechanisms for energy transfer are in fact indistinguishable, each being the asymptotic limit of a unified mechanism involving virtual photon coupling. The familiar R−6 dependence associated with Forster radiationless transfer is the short‐range limit, while over longer distances retardation effects modify the radial dependence to R−2, and the result is the classical radiative transfer law. For radiationless energy transfer, wide use is made of Galanin’s result concerning fluorescence depolarization losses due to single‐step transfer. Here Galanin’s work is extended to obtain a general formula for the residual fluorescence anisotropy following energy transfer over arbitrary intermolecular distances. Hence a connection is estab...

Quasirelativistic behavior of cold atoms in light fields

We study the influence of three laser beams on the center-of-mass motion of cold atoms with internal energy levels in a tripod configuration. We show that, as for electrons in graphene, the atomic motion can be equivalent to the dynamics of ultrarelativistic two-component Dirac fermions. We propose and analyze an experimental setup for observing such a quasirelativistic motion of ultracold atoms. We demonstrate that the atoms can experience negative refraction and focusing by Veselago-type lenses. We also show how the chiral nature of the atomic motion manifests itself as an oscillation of the atomic internal state population, which depends strongly on the direction of the center-of-mass motion. For certain directions an atom remains in its initial state, whereas for other directions the populations undergo oscillations between a pair of internal states.

Measuring topology in a laser-coupled honeycomb lattice: from Chern insulators to topological semi-metals

Ultracold fermions trapped in a honeycomb optical lattice constitute a versatile setup to experimentally realize the Haldane model (1988 Phys. Rev. Lett. 61 2015). In this system, a non-uniform synthetic magnetic flux can be engineered through laser-induced methods, explicitly breaking time-reversal symmetry. This potentially opens a bulk gap in the energy spectrum, which is associated with a non-trivial topological order, i.e. a non-zero Chern number. In this paper, we consider the possibility of producing and identifying such a robust Chern insulator in the laser-coupled honeycomb lattice. We explore a large parameter space spanned by experimentally controllable parameters and obtain a variety of phase diagrams, clearly identifying the accessible topologically non-trivial regimes. We discuss the signatures of Chern insulators in cold-atom systems, considering available detection methods. We also highlight the existence of topological semi-metals in this system, which are gapless phases characterized by non-zero winding numbers, not present in Haldanes original model.

Effective magnetic fields for stationary light.

We describe a method to create effective gauge potentials for stationary-light polaritons. When stationary light is created in the interaction with a rotating ensemble of coherently driven double-Lambda type atoms, the equation of motion is that of a massive Schrödinger particle in a magnetic field. Since the effective interaction area for the polaritons can be made large, degenerate Landau levels can be created with degeneracy well above 100. This opens up the possibility to study the bosonic analogue of the fractional quantum Hall effect for interacting stationary-light polaritons.