Spin–orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein condensates

By Yu-Ju Lin, K. Jiménez-García, Ian B. Spielman. Nature, 2011

1,540 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spin–orbit (SO) coupling—the interaction between a quantum particle’s spin and its momentum—is ubiquitous in physical systems. In condensed matter systems, SO coupling is crucial for the spin-Hall effect and topological insulators; it contributes to the electronic properties of materials such as GaAs, and is important for spintronic devices. Quantum many-body systems of ultracold atoms can be precisely controlled experimentally, and would therefore seem to provide an ideal platform on which to study SO coupling. Although an atom’s intrinsic SO coupling affects its electronic structure, it does not lead to coupling between the spin and the centre-of-mass motion of the atom. Here, we engineer SO coupling (with equal Rashba and Dresselhaus strengths) in a neutral atomic Bose–Einstein condensate by dressing two atomic spin states with a pair of lasers. Such coupling has not been realized previously for ultracold atomic gases, or indeed any bosonic system. Furthermore, in the presence of the laser coupling, the interactions between the two dressed atomic spin states are modified, driving a quantum phase transition from a spatially spin-mixed state (lasers off) to a phase-separated state (above a critical laser intensity). We develop a many-body theory that provides quantitative agreement with the observed location of the transition. The engineered SO coupling—equally applicable for bosons and fermions—sets the stage for the realization of topological insulators in fermionic neutral atom systems.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fc7ffe83b142bb242b02602700dd32090a4b45c0

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Citations in the corpus

Colloquium: Artificial gauge potentials for neutral atoms (2010, background): “(17)], novel features appear in the exact diagonalization approach such as the possibility to simulate a spin-orbit coupling between two Bose– Einstein condensates in different dressed atomic states, experimentally observed by Lin et al. (2011).”
Experimental determination of the finite-temperature phase diagram of a spin–orbit coupled Bose gas (2013, neutral): “m cm(aL) N0 2 (aR) N0 2 |0〉 (3) with cm = (((N0/2)−m)!((N0/2)+m)!)/N0!.”
Quantum Simulators: Architectures and Opportunities (2019, background): “[7] Y-J Lin, K Jiménez-Garćıa, and Ian B Spielman.”
Topological characterizations of an extended Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model (2019, neutral): “[19] Lin, Y.”
Anomalous edge states and the bulk-edge correspondence for periodically-driven two dimensional systems (2012, methodology): “For cold atoms, various methods have been proposed for creating ‘‘synthetic gauge fields,’’ which mimic the effects of magnetic fields [7–9] or spin-orbit coupling [10,11] for neutral atoms.”