Band Engineering New Phases of Matter with Ultracold Atoms
Abstract
In this three-year effort we have made significant progress in understanding how to engineer novel phases of matter with atoms in optical lattices. Optical lattices applied to trapped atomic gases offer considerable versatility in engineering quantum states. Recent advances in optical control have taken exploration of quantum degenerate matter in an exciting new direction: band engineering with synthetic fields. In this context, synthetic fields act as effective magnetic and/or electric fields on neutral quantum gases. Our work models how novel quantum states derive from engineered bands because tailored bases emphasize interaction effects. Novel quantum states we studied include: Wigner crystals, emergent Luttinger liquids, many-body localization, the Bose-Glass, as well as other. Our methods include numerical simulations of models constructed to capture effects in ongoing experiments. Specific methods include numerical diagonalization, the time evolving block-decimation algorithm, and mean-field theories. Our work fosters the identification of novel states of matter with ultracold atomic gases derived from band engineering of importance to ongoing Air Force research efforts to build such experiments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 03, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1065894
Entities
People
- V. W. Scarola
Organizations
- Virginia Tech