Jörg Christina, Queraltó Gerard, Kremer Mark, Pelegrí Gerard, Schulz Julian, Szameit Alexander, von Freymann Georg, Mompart Jordi, Ahufinger Verònica
Physics Department and Research Center OPTIMAS, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Departament de Física, Universitat Auto'noma de Barcelona, E-08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Light Sci Appl. 2020 Aug 28;9:150. doi: 10.1038/s41377-020-00385-6. eCollection 2020.
The discovery of artificial gauge fields controlling the dynamics of uncharged particles that otherwise elude the influence of standard electromagnetic fields has revolutionised the field of quantum simulation. Hence, developing new techniques to induce these fields is essential to boost quantum simulation of photonic structures. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the generation of an artificial gauge field in a photonic lattice by modifying the topological charge of a light beam, overcoming the need to modify the geometry along the evolution or impose external fields. In particular, we show that an effective magnetic flux naturally appears when a light beam carrying orbital angular momentum is injected into a waveguide lattice with a diamond chain configuration. To demonstrate the existence of this flux, we measure an effect that derives solely from the presence of a magnetic flux, the Aharonov-Bohm caging effect, which is a localisation phenomenon of wavepackets due to destructive interference. Therefore, we prove the possibility of switching on and off artificial gauge fields just by changing the topological charge of the input state, paving the way to accessing different topological regimes in a single structure, which represents an important step forward for optical quantum simulation.
控制不带电粒子动力学的人工规范场的发现，这些粒子原本不受标准电磁场影响，这一发现彻底改变了量子模拟领域。因此，开发诱导这些场的新技术对于推动光子结构的量子模拟至关重要。在此，我们通过改变光束的拓扑电荷，在实验上证明了在光子晶格中产生人工规范场，克服了沿演化过程修改几何形状或施加外部场的需求。特别是，我们表明，当携带轨道角动量的光束注入具有金刚石链配置的波导晶格时，会自然出现有效磁通量。为了证明这种磁通量的存在，我们测量了一种仅源于磁通量存在的效应，即阿哈罗诺夫 - 玻姆俘获效应，这是由于相消干涉导致的波包局域化现象。因此，我们证明了仅通过改变输入态的拓扑电荷来开启和关闭人工规范场的可能性，为在单个结构中进入不同拓扑区域铺平了道路，这代表了光学量子模拟向前迈出的重要一步。
