Wu Ling-Na, Luo Xin-Yu, Xu Zhi-Fang, Ueda Masahito, Wang Ruquan, You L
State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 27;7:46756. doi: 10.1038/srep46756.
Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) plays an essential role in many exotic and interesting phenomena in condensed matter physics. In neutral-atom-based quantum simulations, synthetic SOC constitutes a key enabling element. The strength of SOC realized so far is limited by various reasons or constraints. This work reports tunable SOC synthesized with a gradient magnetic field (GMF) for atoms in a harmonic trap. Nearly ten-fold enhancement is observed when the GMF is modulated near the harmonic-trap resonance in comparison with the free-space situation. A theory is developed that well explains the experimental results. Our work offers a clear physical insight into and analytical understanding of how to tune the strength of atomic SOC synthesized with GMF using harmonic trap resonance.
自旋轨道耦合（SOC）在凝聚态物理中的许多奇异且有趣的现象中起着至关重要的作用。在基于中性原子的量子模拟中，合成自旋轨道耦合是一个关键的促成要素。迄今为止，所实现的自旋轨道耦合强度受到各种原因或限制的制约。这项工作报道了利用谐波阱中原子的梯度磁场（GMF）合成的可调谐自旋轨道耦合。与自由空间情况相比，当梯度磁场在谐波阱共振附近调制时，观察到近十倍的增强。发展了一种理论，该理论很好地解释了实验结果。我们的工作为如何利用谐波阱共振来调节由梯度磁场合成的原子自旋轨道耦合强度提供了清晰的物理见解和分析理解。
