Frustrated colloidal ordering and fully packed loops in arrays of optical traps

Abstract

We propose that a system of colloidal particles interacting with a honeycomb array of optical traps that each contain three wells can be used to realize a fully packed loop model. One of the phases in this system can be mapped to Baxter's three-coloring problem, offering an easily accessible physical realization of this problem. As a function of temperature and interaction strength, we find a series of phases, including long range ordered loop or stripe states, stripes with sliding symmetries, random packed loop states, and disordered states in which the loops break apart. Our geometry could be constructed using ion trap arrays, BEC vortices in optical traps, or magnetic vortices in nanostructured superconductors.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (12)

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• Direct observation of the ice rule in artificial kagome spin ice
• Geometric Frustration in Buckled Colloidal Monolayers
• Theory of the [111] magnetization plateau in spin ice
• Realizing Colloidal Artificial Ice on Arrays of Optical Traps
• Interacting classical dimers on the square lattice
• Static and dynamic friction in sliding colloidal monolayers
• Direct entropy determination and application to artificial spin ice
• Macroscopic magnetic frustration
• Superfluidity of Bosons in Kagome Lattices with Frustration
• Melting of Colloidal Molecular Crystals on Triangular Lattices
• Global phase diagram of the spin-1 antiferromagnet with uniaxial anisotropy on the kagome lattice

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Ice Rule and Emergent Frustration in Particle Ice and Beyond
• Geometric Frustration of Colloidal Dimers on a Honeycomb Magnetic Lattice
• The Inner Phases of Colloidal Hexagonal Ice
• Dynamic Control of Topological Defects in Artificial Colloidal Ice
• Doped Colloidal Artificial Ice
• Phonon spectra of a two-dimensional solid dusty plasma modified by two-dimensional periodic substrates
• Frustrated superconductivity and sextetting order
• Information transmission and signal permutation in active flow networks
• Entanglement dynamics in monitored Kitaev circuits: loop models, symmetry classification, and quantum Lifshitz scaling
• Phase transitions and crtical exponents in the six-vertex model on kagome lattices