Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• The role of atomic interactions in cavity-induced continuous time crystals

  Christian Høj Johansen, Johannes Lang, Francesco Piazza

  SciPost Phys. 17, 089 (2024) · published 24 September 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider continuous time-crystalline phases in dissipative many-body systems of atoms in cavities, focusing on the role of short-range interatomic interactions. First, we show that the latter can alter the nature of the time crystal by changing the type of the underlying critical bifurcation. Second, we characterize the heating mechanism and dynamics resulting from the short-range interactions and demonstrate that they make the time crystal inherently metastable. We argue this is generic for the broader class of dissipative time crystals in atom-cavity systems whenever the cavity loss rate is comparable to the atomic recoil energy. We observe that such a scenario for heating has several similarities to the one proposed for preheating in the early universe, where the oscillating coherent inflation field decays into a cascade of exponentially growing fluctuations. By extending approaches for dissipative dynamical systems to our many-body problem, we obtain analytical predictions for the parameters describing the phase transition and the heating rate inside the time-crystalline phase. We underpin and extend the analytical predictions of the heating rates with numerical simulations, which also show that the metastable regime exists when the inherent stochastic nature is taken into account.

• Suppression of the superfluid Kelvin-Helmholtz instability due to massive vortex cores, friction and confinement

  Matteo Caldara, Andrea Richaud, Massimo Capone, Pietro Massignan

  SciPost Phys. 17, 076 (2024) · published 10 September 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We characterize the dynamical instability responsible for the breakdown of regular rows and necklaces of quantized vortices that appear at the interface between two superfluids in relative motion. Making use of a generalized point-vortex model, we identify several mechanisms leading to the suppression of this instability. They include a non-zero mass of the vortex cores, dissipative processes resulting from the interaction between the vortices and the excitations of the superfluid, and the proximity of the vortex array to the sample boundaries. We show that massive vortex cores not only have a mitigating effect on the dynamical instability, but also change the associated scaling law and affect the direction along which it develops. The predictions of our massive and dissipative point-vortex model are eventually compared against recent experimental measurements of the maximum instability growth rate relevant to vortex necklaces in a cold-atom platform.

• Dissipative preparation of a Floquet topological insulator in an optical lattice via bath engineering

  Alexander Schnell, Christof Weitenberg, André Eckardt

  SciPost Phys. 17, 052 (2024) · published 14 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Floquet engineering is an important tool for realizing topologically nontrivial band structures for charge-neutral atoms in optical lattices. However, the preparation of a topological-band-insulator-type state of fermions, with one nontrivial quasi-energy band filled completely and the others empty, is challenging as a result of both driving induced heating as well as imperfect adiabatic state preparation (with the latter induced by the unavoidable gap closing when passing the topological transition). An alternative procedure that has been proposed is to prepare such states dissipatively, i.e. as a steady state that emerges when coupling the system to reservoirs. Here we discuss a concrete scheme that couples the system to a weakly interacting Bose condensate given by second atomic species acting as a heat bath. Our strategy relies on the engineering of the potential for the bath particles, so that they occupy weakly coupled tubes perpendicular to the two-dimensional system. Using Floquet-Born-Markov theory, we show that the resulting nonequilibrium steady state of the driven-dissipative system approximates a topological insulator. We even find indications for the approximate stabilization of an anomalous Floquet topological insulator, a state that is impossible to realize in equilibrium.

• Heavy-light $N+1$ clusters of two-dimensional fermions

  Jules Givois, Andrea Tononi, Dmitry S. Petrov

  SciPost Phys. 17, 050 (2024) · published 13 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study binding of $N$ identical heavy fermions by a light atom in two dimensions assuming zero-range attractive heavy-light interactions. By using the mean-field theory valid for large $N$ we show that the $N+1$ cluster is bound when the mass ratio exceeds $1.074N^2$. The mean-field theory, being scale invariant in two dimensions, predicts only the shapes of the clusters leaving their sizes and energies undefined. By taking into account beyond-mean-field effects we find closed-form expressions for these quantities. We also discuss differences between the Thomas-Fermi and Hartree-Fock approaches for treating the heavy fermions.

• Conformal maps and superfluid vortex dynamics on curved and bounded surfaces: The case of an elliptical boundary

  Matteo Caldara, Andrea Richaud, Pietro Massignan, Alexander L. Fetter

  SciPost Phys. 17, 039 (2024) · published 8 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Recent advances in cold-atom platforms have made real-time dynamics accessible, renewing interest in the motion of superfluid vortices in two-dimensional domains. Here we show that the energy and the trajectories of arbitrary vortex configurations may be computed on a complicated (curved or bounded) surface, provided that one knows a conformal map that links the latter to a simpler domain (like the full plane, or a circular boundary). We also prove that Hamilton's equations based on the vortex energy agree with the complex dynamical equations for the vortex dynamics, demonstrating that the vortex trajectories are constant-energy curves. We use these ideas to study the dynamics of vortices in a two-dimensional incompressible superfluid with an elliptical boundary, and we derive an analytical expression for the complex potential describing the hydrodynamic flow throughout the fluid. For a vortex inside an elliptical boundary, the orbits are nearly self-similar ellipses.

• Topological photonic band gaps in honeycomb atomic arrays

  Pierre Wulles, Sergey E. Skipetrov

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 051 (2024) · published 7 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  lattice of two-level atoms coupled by the in-plane electromagnetic field may exhibit band gaps that can be opened either by applying an external magnetic field or by breaking the symmetry between the two triangular sublattices of which the honeycomb one is a superposition. We establish the conditions of band gap opening, compute the width of the gap, and characterize its topological property by a topological index (Chern number). The topological nature of the band gap leads to inversion of the population imbalance between the two triangular sublattices for modes with frequencies near band edges. It also prohibits a transition to the trivial limit of infinitely spaced, noninteracting atoms without closing the spectral gap. Surrounding the lattice by a Fabry-Pérot cavity with small intermirror spacing $d < \pi/k_0$, where $k_0$ is the free-space wave number at the atomic resonance frequency, renders the system Hermitian by suppressing the leakage of energy out of the atomic plane without modifying its topological properties. In contrast, a larger $d$ allows for propagating optical modes that are built up due to reflections at the cavity mirrors and have frequencies inside the band gap of the free-standing lattice, thus closing the latter.

• Bound impurities in a one-dimensional Bose lattice gas: Low-energy properties and quench-induced dynamics

  Felipe Isaule, Abel Rojo-Francàs, Bruno Juliá-Díaz

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 049 (2024) · published 31 July 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study two mobile bosonic impurities immersed in a one-dimensional optical lattice and interacting with a bosonic bath. We employ the exact diagonalization method for small periodic lattices to study stationary properties and dynamics. We consider the branch of repulsive interactions that induce the formation of bound impurities, akin to the bipolaron problem. A comprehensive study of ground-state and low-energy properties is presented, including an examination of the interaction strengths which induce the formation of a bound dimer of impurities. We also study the dynamics induced after an interaction quench to examine the stability of the bound dimers. We reveal that after large interaction quenches from strong to weak interactions the system can show large oscillations over time with revivals of the dimer states. We find that the oscillations are driven by selected eigenstates with phase-separated configurations.

• Analytic thermodynamic properties of the Lieb-Liniger gas

  Matthew L. Kerr, Giulia De Rosi, Karen V. Kheruntsyan

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 047 (2024) · published 30 July 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a comprehensive review on the state-of-the-art of the approximate analytic approaches describing the finite-temperature thermodynamic quantities of the Lieb-Liniger model of the one-dimensional (1D) Bose gas with contact repulsive interactions. This paradigmatic model of quantum many-body-theory plays an important role in many areas of physics-thanks to its integrability and possible experimental realization using, e.g., ensembles of ultracold bosonic atoms confined to quasi-1D geometries. The thermodynamics of the uniform Lieb-Liniger gas can be obtained numerically using the exact thermal Bethe ansatz (TBA) method, first derived in 1969 by Yang and Yang. However, the TBA numerical calculations do not allow for the in-depth understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms that govern the thermodynamic behavior of the Lieb-Liniger gas at finite temperature. Our work is then motivated by the insights that emerge naturally from the transparency of closed-form analytic results, which are derived here in six different regimes of the gas and which exhibit an excellent agreement with the TBA numerics. Our findings can be further adopted for characterising the equilibrium properties of inhomogeneous (e.g., harmonically trapped) 1D Bose gases within the local density approximation and for the development of improved hydrodynamic theories, allowing for the calculation of breathing mode frequencies which depend on the underlying thermodynamic equation of state. Our analytic approaches can be applied to other systems including impurities in a quantum bath, liquid helium-4, and ultracold Bose gas mixtures.

  1 citation

• Probing pair correlations in Fermi gases with Ramsey-Bragg interferometry

  Théo Malas-Danzé, Alexandre Dugelay, Nir Navon, Hadrien Kurkjian

  SciPost Phys. 17, 024 (2024) · published 29 July 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We propose an interferometric method to probe pair correlations in a gas of spin-$1/2$ fermions. The method consists of a Ramsey sequence where both spin states of the Fermi gas are set in a superposition of a state at rest and a state with a large recoil velocity. The two-body density matrix is extracted via the fluctuations of the transferred fraction to the recoiled state. In the pair-condensed phase, the off-diagonal long-range order is directly reflected in the asymptotic behavior of the interferometric signal for long interrogation times. The method also allows to probe the spatial structure of the condensed pairs: the interferometric signal is an oscillating function of the interrogation time in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer regime; it becomes an overdamped function in the molecular Bose-Einstein condensate regime.

  1 citation

• Quantum circuit simulation of linear optics using fermion to qubit encoding

  Seungbeom Chin, Jaehee Kim, Joonsuk Huh

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 042 (2024) · published 15 July 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This work proposes a digital quantum simulation protocol for the linear scattering process of bosons, which provides a simple extension to partially distinguishable boson cases. Our protocol is achieved by combining the boson-fermion correspondence relation and fermion to qubit encoding protocols. As a proof of concept, we designed quantum circuits for generating the Hong-Ou-Mandel dip by varying particle distinguishability. The circuits were verified with the classical and quantum simulations using the IBM Quantum and IonQ cloud services.