Wave-packet Dynamics in Synthetic Non-Abelian Gauge Fields

Abstract

It is generally admitted that in quantum mechanics, the electromagnetic potentials have physical interpretations otherwise absent in classical physics as illustrated by the Aharonov-Bohm effect. In 1984, Berry interpreted this effect as a geometrical phase factor. The same year, Wilczek and Zee generalized the concept of Berry phases to degenerate levels and showed that a non-Abelian gauge field arises in these systems. In sharp contrast with the Abelian case, spatially uniform non-Abelian gauge fields can induce particle noninertial motion. We explore this intriguing phenomenon with a degenerated Fermionic atomic gas subject to a two-dimensional synthetic SU(2) non-Abelian gauge field. We reveal the spin Hall nature of the noninertial dynamic as well as its anisotropy in amplitude and frequency due to the spin texture of the system. We finally draw the similarities and differences of the observed wave packet dynamic and the celebrated Zitterbewegung effect of the relativistic Dirac equation.

Published version: 6 pages of main text with 4 figures; 5 pages of supplementary information with 1 figure

References in corpus (10)

• Spin-Injection Spectroscopy of a Spin-Orbit Coupled Fermi Gas
• Degenerate Quantum Gases with Spin-Orbit Coupling
• An Aharonov-Bohm interferometer for determining Bloch band topology
• Observing Zitterbewegung in Ultracold Atoms
• Unified description of the Zitterbewegung for spintronic, graphene and superconducting systems
• Nuclear Spin Effects in Optical Lattice Clocks
• Spin-orbit coupled two-electron Fermi gases of ytterbium atoms
• Spatial coherence of spin-orbit-coupled Bose gases
• Atomic Zitterbewegung
• Simulating Dirac models with ultracold atoms in optical lattices

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Synthetic non-Abelian Electric Fields and Spin-Orbit Coupling in Photonic Synthetic Dimensions
• Spin-orbit-coupling-induced phase separation in trapped Bose gases
• Link between \emph{Zitterbewegung} and topological phase transition
• Bi-color atomic beam slower and magnetic field compensation for ultracold gases
• Revealing inherent quantum interference and entanglement of a Dirac particle
• Experimental realization of a SU(3) color-orbit coupling in an ultracold gas
• Density-Dependent Gauge Field with Raman Lattices
• Geometric Ramsey Interferometry with a Tripod Scheme
• Dynamically Characterizing the Structures of Dirac Points via Wave Packets
• Topological quantum electrodynamics in synthetic non-Abelian gauge fields
• Mesoscopic scattering dynamics under generic uniform SU(2) gauge fields: Spin-momentum relaxation and coherent backscattering
• Dynamical Signatures of Floquet Topology in Wave Packet Dynamics