Synthetic magnetic fluxes on the honeycomb lattice
- Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543 (Singapore)
We devise experimental schemes that are able to mimic uniform and staggered magnetic fluxes acting on ultracold two-electron atoms, such as ytterbium atoms, propagating in a honeycomb lattice. The atoms are first trapped into two independent state-selective triangular lattices and then further exposed to a suitable configuration of resonant Raman laser beams. These beams induce hops between the two triangular lattices and make atoms move in a honeycomb lattice. Atoms traveling around each unit cell of this honeycomb lattice pick up a nonzero phase. In the uniform case, the artificial magnetic flux sustained by each cell can reach about two flux quanta, thereby realizing a cold-atom analog of the Harper model with its notorious Hofstadter's butterfly structure. Different condensed-matter phenomena such as the relativistic integer and fractional quantum Hall effects, as observed in graphene samples, could be targeted with this scheme.
- OSTI ID:
- 22075502
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 84, Issue 2; Other Information: (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Phase diagrams and Hofstadter butterflies in the strongly correlated bosonic systems on the lattices with Dirac points
Ultracold bosons in a synthetic periodic magnetic field: Mott phases and reentrant superfluid-insulator transitions