Strain and pseudo-magnetic fields in optical lattices from density-assisted tunneling

Abstract

Applying time-periodic modulations is routinely used to control and design synthetic matter in quantum-engineered settings. In lattice systems, this approach is explored to engineer band structures with non-trivial topological properties, but also to generate exotic interaction processes. A prime example is density-assisted tunneling, by which the hopping amplitude of a particle between neighboring sites explicitly depends on their respective occupations. Here, we show how density-assisted tunneling can be tailored in view of simulating the effects of strain in synthetic graphene-type systems. Specifically, we consider a mixture of two atomic species on a honeycomb optical lattice: one species forms a Bose-Einstein condensate in an anisotropic harmonic trap, whose inhomogeneous density profile induces an effective uniaxial strain for the second species through density-assisted tunneling processes. In direct analogy with strained graphene, the second species experiences a pseudo magnetic field, hence exhibiting relativistic Landau levels and the valley Hall effect. Our proposed scheme introduces a unique platform for the investigation of strain-induced gauge fields and their possible interplay with quantum fluctuations and collective excitations.

13 pages, 12 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Formation of spontaneous density-wave patterns in DC driven lattices
• Quasiperiodicity hinders ergodic Floquet eigenstates
• Tunable valley filtering in dynamically strained $\alpha$-${\mathcal{T}}_3$ lattices
• Topological Electromagnetic Effects and Higher Second Chern Numbers in Four-Dimensional Gapped Phases
• Topological phonons in arrays of ultracold dipolar particles
• Pseudo-magnetic fields in square lattices
• Topological Superfluid Responses of Superconducting Dirac Semimetals
• Excitation spectrum of vortex-lattice modes in a rotating condensate with a density-dependent gauge potential
• Quantized valley Hall response from local bulk density variations
• Superfluid Stiffness and Josephson Quantum Capacitance: Adiabatic Approach and Topological Effects
• Nodal semimetals in $d\ge 3$ to sharp pseudo-Landau levels by dimensional reduction
• Study on axial fields in the dynamically assisted Schwinger effect