Publications

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Dynamics of polar-core spin vortices in inhomogeneous spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates

Zachary L. Stevens-Hough, Matthew J. Davis, Lewis A. Williamson

SciPost Phys. 18, 134 (2025) · published 23 April 2025 | · pdf

In the easy-plane phase, a ferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate is magnetized in a plane transverse to the applied Zeeman field. This phase supports polar-core spin vortices (PCVs), which consist of phase windings of transverse magnetization. Here we show that spin-changing collisions cause a PCV to accelerate down density gradients in an inhomogeneous condensate. The dynamics is well-described by a simplified model adapted from scalar systems, which predicts the dependence of the dynamics on trap tightness and quadratic Zeeman energy. In a harmonic trap, a PCV accelerates radially to the condensate boundary, in stark contrast to the azimuthal motion of vortices in a scalar condensate. In a trap that has a local potential maximum at the centre, the PCV exhibits oscillations around the trap centre, which persist for a remarkably long time. The oscillations coincide with the emission and reabsorption of axial spin waves, which reflect off the condensate boundary.
Coherent deflection of atomic samples and positional mesoscopic superpositions

Luis Felipe Alves da Silva, Leandro M. R. Rocha, Miled H. Y. Moussa

SciPost Phys. 18, 169 (2025) · published 28 May 2025 | · pdf

We present a protocol based on the interplay between superradiance and superabsorption to achieve the coherent deflection of an atomic sample due to the momentum transfer from the atoms to a cavity field. The coherent character of this momentum transfer, causing the atomic sample to deflect as a whole, follows from the collective nature of the atomic superradiant pulse and its superabsorption by the cavity field. The protocol is then used for the construction of positional mesoscopic atomic superpositions in cavity quantum electrodynamics.
Emergent dipole field theory in atomic ladders

Hernan B. Xavier, Poetri Sonya Tarabunga, Marcello Dalmonte, Rodrigo G. Pereira

SciPost Phys. 18, 184 (2025) · published 10 June 2025 | · pdf

We study the dynamics of hard-core bosons on ladders, in the presence of strong kinetic constrains akin to those of the Bariev model. We use a combination of analytical methods and numerical simulations to establish the phase diagram of the model. The model displays a paired Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid phase featuring an emergent dipole symmetry, which encodes the local pairing constraint into a global, nonlocal quantity. We scrutinize the effect of such emergent low-energy symmetry during quench dynamics including single-particle defects. We observe that, despite being approximate, the dipole symmetry still leads to very slow relaxation dynamics, which we model via an effective field theory. The model we discuss is amenable to realization in both cold atoms in optical lattices and Rydberg atom arrays with dynamics taking place solely in the Rydberg manifold. To observe the unusual dynamics of excitations in such experimental platforms, we propose a two-step protocol, which starts with the quasi-adiabatic preparation of low-energy states, followed by the local creation of defects and their study under quench dynamics.
Z2 topological orders in kagome dipolar systems: Feedback from Rydberg quantum simulator

Pengwei Zhao, Gang v. Chen

SciPost Phys. 19, 040 (2025) · published 14 August 2025 | · pdf

The mutual feedback between quantum condensed matter and cold atom physics has been quite fruitful throughout history and continues to inspire ongoing research. Motivated by the recent activities on the quantum simulation of topological orders among the ultracold Rydberg atom arrays, we consider the possibility of searching for topological orders among the dipolar quantum magnets and polar molecules with a kagome lattice geometry. Together with other quantum interactions such as the transverse field, the dipolar interaction endows the kagome system with a similar structure as the Balents-Fisher-Girvin model and thus fosters the emergence of the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological orders. We construct a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory to access the topological ordered phase and describe the spinon and vison excitations for the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological orders. We explain the spectroscopic consequences for various quantum phases as well as the experimental detection. We further discuss the rare-earth kagome magnets, ultracold polar molecules, and cluster Mott insulators for the physical realization.
A correspondence between the Rabi model and an Ising model with long-range interactions

Bruno Scheihing-Hitschfeld, Néstor Sepúlveda

SciPost Phys. 19, 153 (2025) · published 15 December 2025 | · pdf

By means of Trotter's formula, we show that transition amplitudes between a class of generalized coherent states in the Rabi model can be understood in terms of a certain Ising model featuring long-range interactions beyond nearest neighbors in its thermodynamic limit. Specifically, we relate the transition amplitudes in the Rabi model to a sum over binary variables of the form of a partition function of an Ising model with a number of spin sites equal to the number of steps in Trotter's formula applied to the real-time evolution of the Rabi model. From this, we show that a perturbative expansion in the energy splitting of the two-level subsystem in the Rabi model is equivalent to an expansion in the number of spin domains in the Ising model. We conclude by discussing how calculations in one model give nontrivial information about the other model, and vice versa, as well as applications and generalizations this correspondence may find.
Feedback cooling of fermionic atoms in optical lattices

Wenhua Zhao, Ling-Na Wu, Francesco Petiziol, André Eckardt

SciPost Phys. 19, 073 (2025) · published 25 September 2025 | · pdf

We discuss the preparation of topological insulator states with fermionic ultracold atoms in optical lattices by means of measurement-based Markovian feedback control. The designed measurement and feedback operators induce an effective dissipative channel that stabilizes the desired insulator state, either in an exact way or approximately in the case where additional experimental constraints are assumed. Successful state preparation is demonstrated in one-dimensional insulators as well as for Haldane's Chern insulator, by calculating the fidelity between the target ground state and the steady state of the feedback-modified master equation. The fidelity is obtained numerically through exact diagonalization or via time evolution of the system with moderate sizes. For larger 2D systems, we compare the mean occupation of the single-particle eigenstates for the ground and steady state computed through mean-field kinetic equations.
Dipolar magnetostirring protocol for three-well atomtronic circuits

Héctor Briongos-Merino, Felipe Isaule, Montserrat Guilleumas, Bruno Juliá-Díaz

SciPost Phys. 19, 059 (2025) · published 27 August 2025 | · pdf

We propose a magnetostirring protocol to create persistent currents on an annular system. Under this protocol, polar bosons confined in a three-well ring circuit reach a state with high average circulation. We model the system with an extended Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian and show that the protocol can create circulation in an atomtronic circuit for a range of tunable parameters. The performance and robustness of this scheme are examined, in particular considering different interaction regimes. We also present a method for predicting the optimal protocol parameters, which improves protocol's scalability and enables its application to systems with large numbers of bosons. This overcomes computational limitations and paves the way for exploring macroscopic quantum phenomena.
Mesoscopic electron transport and atomic gases, a review of Frank W. J. Hekking's scientific work

Luigi Amico, Denis M. Basko, F Sebastián Bergeret, Olivier Buisson, Hervé Courtois, Rosario Fazio, Wiebke Guichard, Anna Minguzzi, Jukka Pekola, Gerd Schön

SciPost Phys. 5, 009 (2018) · published 27 July 2018 | · pdf

Frank W. J. Hekking performed his PhD work on "Aspects of Electron Transport in Semiconductor Nanostructures" at the TU Delft in 1992. He then worked as a postdoc at the University of Karlsruhe, the University of Minnesota, the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and the Ruhr University at Bochum. In 1999 he joined the LPMMC (Laboratoire de Physique et Mod\' elisation des Milieux Condens\' es) in Grenoble and was appointed Professor at the Universit\' e Joseph Fourier and afterwards Universit\' e Grenoble Alpes. Frank Hekking was nominated as a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, for the periods 2002-2007 and 2012-2017. This review provides an overview of his scientific contributions to several fields of mesoscopic electron transport and superconductivity as well as atomic gases, and is organized along sections describing the different themes.
Competition of light- and phonon-dressing in microwave-dressed Bose polarons

G. M. Koutentakis, S. I. Mistakidis, F. Grusdt, H. R. Sadeghpour, P. Schmelcher

SciPost Phys. 19, 093 (2025) · published 13 October 2025 | · pdf

We theoretically investigate the stationary properties of a spin-1/2 impurity immersed in a one-dimensional confined Bose gas. In particular, we consider coherently coupled spin states with an external field, where only one spin component interacts with the bath, enabling light dressing of the impurity and spin-dependent bath-impurity interactions. Through detailed comparisons with ab-initio many-body simulations, we demonstrate that the composite system is accurately described by a simplified effective Hamiltonian. The latter builds upon previously developed effective potential approaches in the absence of light dressing. It can be used to extract the impurity energy, residue, effective mass, and anharmonicity induced by the phononic dressing. Light-dressing is shown to increase the polaron residue, undressing the impurity from phononic excitations because of strong spin coupling. For strong repulsions, previously shown to trigger dynamical Bose polaron decay (a phenomenon called temporal orthogonality catastrophe), it is explained that strong light-dressing stabilizes a repulsive polaron-dressed state. Our results establish the effective Hamiltonian framework as a powerful tool for exploring strongly interacting polaronic systems and corroborating forthcoming experimental realizations.
Tunable anharmonicity in cavity optomechanics in the unresolved sideband regime

Jonathan L. Wise, Clement Dutreix, Fabio Pistolesi

SciPost Phys. 19, 016 (2025) · published 16 July 2025 | · pdf

Introducing a controlled and strong anharmonicity in mechanical systems is a present challenge of nanomechanics. In cavity optomechanics a mechanical oscillator may be made anharmonic by ponderomotively coupling its motion to the light field of a laser-driven cavity. In the regime where the mechanical resonating frequency and the single-photon coupling constant are small compared to the decay rate of the cavity field, it turns out that the quantum electromagnetic fluctuations of the laser field drive the oscillator into a high-temperature thermal state. The motional state may however be highly non-Gaussian; we show that a precise tuning of system parameters may even lead to a purely quartic effective potential for the mechanical oscillator. We present a theory that predicts the measurable signatures left by the mechanical anharmonicity. In particular, we obtain analytically and numerically the mechanical displacement spectrum, and explore the imprints of the mechanical anharmonicity on the cavity light field.

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