One-dimensional Optical Lattice Research Articles

Introduction to Theoretical and Experimental aspects of Quantum Optimal Control

Abstract Quantum optimal control is a set of methods for designing time-varying electromagnetic fields to perform operations in quantum technologies. This tutorial paper introduces the basic elements of this theory based on the Pontryagin maximum principle, in a physicist-friendly way. An analogy with classical Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics is proposed to present the main results used in this field. Emphasis is placed on the different numerical algorithms to solve a quantum optimal control problem. Several examples ranging from the control of two-level quantum systems to that of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC) in a one-dimensional optical lattice are studied in detail, using both analytical and numerical methods. Codes based on shooting method and gradient-based algorithms are provided. The connection between optimal processes and the quantum speed limit is also discussed in two-level quantum systems. In the case of BEC, the experimental implementation of optimal control protocols is described, both for two-level and many-level cases, with the current constraints and limitations of such platforms. This presentation is illustrated by the corresponding experimental results.

Frustrated Extended Bose-Hubbard Model and Deconfined Quantum Critical Points with Optical Lattices at the Antimagic Wavelength.

The study of geometrically frustrated many-body quantum systems is of central importance to uncover novel quantum mechanical effects. We design a scheme where ultracold bosons trapped in a one-dimensional state-dependent optical lattice are modeled by a frustrated Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian. A derivation of the Hamiltonian parameters based on Cesium atoms, further show large tunability of contact and nearest-neighbor interactions. For pure contact repulsion, we discover the presence of two phases peculiar to frustrated quantum magnets: the bond-order-wave insulator with broken inversion symmetry and a chiral superfluid. When the nearest-neighbor repulsion becomes sizable, a further density-wave insulator with broken translational symmetry can appear. We show that the phase transition between the two spontaneously symmetry-broken phases is continuous, thus representing a one-dimensional deconfined quantum critical point not captured by the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson symmetry-breaking paradigm. Our results provide a solid ground to unveil the novel quantum physics induced by the interplay of nonlocal interactions, geometrical frustration, and quantum fluctuations.

Trapping Ion Coulomb Crystals in an Optical Lattice.

We report the optical trapping of multiple ions localized at individual lattice sites of a one-dimensional optical lattice. We observe a fivefold increased range of axial dc-electric field strength for which ions can be optically trapped with high probability and an increase of the axial eigenfrequency by 2 orders of magnitude compared to an optical dipole trap without interference but of similar intensity. Our findings motivate an alternative pathway to extend arrays of trapped ions in size and dimension, enabling quantum simulations with particles interacting at long range.

Quantum droplets with particle imbalance in one-dimensional optical lattices

Quantum droplets with particle imbalance in one-dimensional optical lattices

Dynamical self-trapping of two-dimensional binary solitons in cross-combined linear and nonlinear optical lattices.

Dynamical and self-trapping properties of two-dimensional (2D) binary mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates in cross-combined lattices, consisting of a one-dimensional (1D) linear optical lattice (LOL) in the x direction for the first component and a 1D nonlinear optical lattice (NOL) in the y direction for the second component, are analytically and numerically investigated. The existence and stability of 2D binary matter wave solitons in these settings are demonstrated both by variational analysis and by direct numerical integration of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations. We find that in the absence of the NOL, binary solitons, stabilized by the action of the 1D LOL and by the attractive intercomponent interaction, can freely move in the y direction. In the presence of the NOL, we find, quite remarkably, the existence of threshold curves in the parameter space separating regions where solitons can move from regions where the solitons become dynamically self-trapped. The mechanism underlying the dynamical self-trapping phenomenon (DSTP) is qualitatively understood in terms of a dynamical barrier induced by the NOL, similar to the Peirls-Nabarro barrier of solitons in discrete lattices. DSTP is numerically demonstrated for binary solitons that are put in motion both by phase imprinting and by the action of external potentials applied in the y direction. In the latter case, we show that the trapping action of the NOL allows one to maintain a 2D binary soliton at rest in a nonequilibrium position of a parabolic trap or to prevent it from falling under the action of gravity. Possible applications of the results are also briefly discussed.

Hamiltonian Ratchet for Matter-Wave Transport.

We report on the design of a Hamiltonian ratchet exploiting periodically at rest integrable trajectories in the phase space of a modulated periodic potential, leading to the linear nondiffusive transport of particles. Using Bose-Einstein condensates in a modulated one-dimensional optical lattice, we make the first observations of this spatial ratchet, which provides way to coherently transport matter waves with possible applications in quantum technologies. In the semiclassical regime, the quantum transport strongly depends on the effective Planck constant due to Floquet state mixing. We also demonstrate the interest of quantum optimal control for efficient initial state preparation into the transporting Floquet states to enhance the transport periodicity.

Pairing Superfluid–Insulator Transition Induced by Atom–Molecule Conversion in Bosonic Mixtures in Optical Lattice

Motivated by the recent experiment on bosonic mixtures of atoms and molecules, we investigate pairing superfluid–insulator (SI) transition for bosonic mixtures of atoms and molecules in a one-dimensional optical lattice, which is described by an extended Bose–Hubbard model with atom–molecule conservation (AMC). It is found that AMC can induce an extra pair–superfluid phase though the system does not demonstrate pair-hopping. In particular, the system may undergo several pairing SI or insulator–superfluid transitions as the detuning from the Feshbach resonance is varied from negative to positive, and the larger positive detuning can bifurcate the pair–superfluid phases into mixed superfluid phases consisting of single-atomic and pair-atomic superfluid. The calculation of the second-order Rényi entropy reveals that the discontinuity in its first-order derivative corresponds to the phase boundary of the pairing SI transition. This means that the residual entanglement in our mean-field treatment can be used to efficiently capture the signature of the pairing SI transition induced by AMC.

Matter-wave solitons in an array of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates.

We investigate matter-wave solitons in a binary Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with spin-orbit (SO) coupling, loaded in a one-dimensional (1D) deep optical lattice and a three-dimensional anisotropic magnetic trap, which creates an array of elongated sub-BECs with transverse tunneling. We show that the system supports 1D continuous and discrete solitons localized in the longitudinal (along the array) and the transverse (across the array) directions, respectively. In addition, such solitons are always unpolarized in the zero-momentum state but polarized in finite-momentum states. We also show that the system supports stable two-dimensional semidiscrete solitons, including single- and multiple-peaked ones, localized in both the longitudinal and transverse directions. Stability diagrams for single-peaked semidiscrete solitons in different parameter spaces are identified. The results reported here are beneficial not only for understanding the physical property of SO-coupled BECs but also for generating new types of matter-wave solitons.

Many-body correlations in one-dimensional optical lattices with alkaline-earth(-like) atoms

We explore the rich nature of correlations in the ground state of ultracold atoms trapped in state-dependent optical lattices. In particular, we consider interacting fermionic ytterbium or strontium atoms, realizing a two-orbital Hubbard model with two spin components. We analyze the model in one-dimensional setting with the experimentally relevant hierarchy of tunneling and interaction amplitudes by means of exact diagonalization and matrix product states approaches, and study the correlation functions in density, spin, and orbital sectors as functions of variable densities of atoms in the ground and metastable excited states. We show that in certain ranges of densities these atomic systems demonstrate strong density-wave, ferro- and antiferromagnetic, as well as antiferroorbital correlations.

Transversal effects on the ground state of hard-core dipolar bosons in one-dimensional optical lattices

Polar lattice gases are usually assumed to have an intersite interaction that decays with the interparticle distance $r$ as $1/{r}^{3}$. However, a loose-enough transversal confinement may strongly modify the dipolar decay in one-dimensional lattices. We show that this modification alters significantly the ground-state properties of hard-core dipolar bosons. For repulsive intersite interactions, the corrected decay alters the conditions for devil's staircase insulators, affecting significantly the particle distribution in the presence of an overall harmonic confinement. For attractive interactions, it results in a reduction of the critical dipole interaction for the formation of self-bound clusters, and for a marked enhancement of the region of liquefied lattice droplets.

Controllable production of degenerate Fermi gases of Li6 atoms in the crossover from two dimensions to three dimensions

Many-body physics in dimensional crossover systems has attracted much attention, but is yet to explore intensively. Cold atoms provide an excellent experimental platform to address the questions in this area, but technical difficulties still exist. When an optical lattice is applied to tune the dimensionality of trapped cold atoms, it is usually difficult to precisely tune the occupation ratio of the atom in the different lattice bands. In this paper we report the method to tune the occupation ratio of the energy band when transferring a three-dimensional Fermi gas into a one-dimensional optical lattice, where we could tune the occupation ratio in the lowest band from unity to $50%$ quantitatively by jointly varying the trapping potentials of the optical dipole trap and the one-dimensional lattice. This method provides a route to study the dependence of the many-body interaction on the dimensionality by continuously changing the dimensionality of a Fermi gas in the crossover from two dimensions to three dimensions.

Quench-induced chaotic dynamics of Anderson-localized interacting Bose-Einstein condensates in one dimension

We study the effect of atomic interaction on the localization and the associated dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in a one-dimensional quasiperiodic optical lattice and random disordered potentials. When the interactions are absent, the condensates exhibit localization, which weakens as we increase the interaction strength beyond a threshold value for both potential types. We inspect the localized and delocalized states by perturbing the system via quenching the interaction strength instantaneously to zero and studying the dynamics of the condensate, which we further corroborate using the out-of-time-order correlator. The temporal behavior of the time correlator displays regular dynamics for the localized state, while it shows temporal chaos for the delocalized state. We confirm this dynamical behavior by analyzing the power spectral density of the time correlator. We further identify that the condensate admits a quasiperiodic route to chaotic dynamics for both the potentials. Finally, we present the variation of the maximal Lyapunov exponents for different nonlinearity and disorder strengths that have a positive value in the regime where the time-correlator function shows chaotic behavior. Through this, we establish the strong connection between the spatially delocalized state of the condensate and its temporal chaos.

S01−P23magnetic quadrupole transition in neutral strontium

We present a detailed investigation of the ultranarrow magnetic-quadrupole $^{1}\mathrm{S}_{0}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{2}$ transition in neutral strontium and show how it can be made accessible for quantum simulation and quantum computation. By engineering the light shift in a one-dimensional optical lattice, we perform high-resolution spectroscopy and observe the characteristic absorption patterns for a magnetic quadrupole transition. We measure an absolute transition frequency of $446,647,242,704(2)$ kHz in $^{88}\mathrm{Sr}$ and an $^{88}\mathrm{Sr}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{87}\mathrm{Sr}$ isotope shift of $+62.91(4)$ MHz. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we use this transition to demonstrate local addressing in an optical lattice with 532 nm spacing with a Rayleigh-criterion resolution of $494(45)$ nm. Our results pave the way for applications of the magnetic quadrupole transition as an optical qubit and for single-site addressing in optical lattices.

Transport of ultracold atoms in superpositions of S - and D -band states in a moving optical lattice

Ultracold atoms in a moving optical lattice with high controllability are a feasible platform to research the transport phenomenon. Here, we study the transport process of ultracold atoms at the $D$ band in a one-dimensional optical lattice and manipulate the transport of superposition states with different superposition weights of $S$-band and $D$-band atoms. In the experiment, we first load ultracold atoms into an optical lattice using the shortcut method and then accelerate the optical lattice by scanning the phase of lattice beams. The atomic transport at the $D$ band and $S$ band is demonstrated, respectively. The group velocity of atoms at the $D$ band is opposite to that at the $S$ band. By preparing superposition states with different superposition weights of the $D$-band and $S$-band atoms, we realize the manipulation of atomic group velocity from positive to negative, and observe the quantum interference between atoms at different bands. The influence of the lattice depth and acceleration on the transport process is also studied. Moreover, the multiorbital simulations are coincident with the experimental results. Our paper sheds light on the transport process of ultracold atoms at higher bands in optical lattices and provides a useful method to manipulate the transport of atomic superposition states.

Mobile impurities interacting with a few one-dimensional lattice bosons

We report a comprehensive study of the ground-state properties of one and two bosonic impurities immersed in small one-dimensional optical lattices loaded with a few interacting bosons. We model the system with a two-component Bose–Hubbard model and solve the problem numerically by means of the exact diagonalization method. We report binding energies of one and two impurities across the superfluid (SF) to Mott-insulator transition and confirm the formation of two-body bound states of impurities induced by repulsive interactions. In particular, we found that an insulator bath induces tightly bound di-impurity dimers, whereas a SF bath induces shallower bound states.

Simulating the Hamiltonian of dimer atomic spin model of one-dimensional optical lattice on quantum computers

The one-dimensional Ising model with its connections to several physical concepts plays a vital role in comprehension of several principles, phenomena and numerical methods. The Hamiltonian of a coupled one-dimensional dissipative spin system in the presence of magnetic field can be obtained from the Ising model. We simulate the above Hamiltonian by designing a quantum circuit with precise gate measurement and execute with the IBMQ experience platform through different [Formula: see text] states with controlled energy separation where we can check quantum synchronization in a dissipative lattice system. Our result shows the relation between various entangled states, the relation between the different energy separation ([Formula: see text]) with the spin–spin coupling ([Formula: see text]) in the lattice, along with fidelity calculations for several iterations of the model used. We also estimate the ground and first excited energy states of Ising-Hamiltonian using VQE algorithm and investigate the lowest energy values varying the number of layers of ansatz.

Dimensional cross-over in self-organised super-radiant phases of ultra-cold atoms inside a cavity

We consider a condensate of ultra-cold bosonic atoms in a linear optical cavity illuminated by a two-pump configuration where each pump makes different angles with the direction of the cavity axis. We show that such a configuration allows a smooth transition from a one-dimensional quantum optical lattice configuration to a two-dimensional quantum optical lattice configuration induced by the cavity–atom interaction. Using a Holstein–Primakoff transformation, we find the atomic density profile of such a self-organised ground state in the super-radiant phase as a function of the angular orientations of the pumps in such a dynamical quantum optical lattice, and also provide an analysis of their structures in coordinate and momentum space. In the later part of the paper, we show how the corresponding results can also be qualitatively understood in terms of an extended Bose–Hubbard model in such a quantum optical lattice potential.

Superexchange Liquefaction of Strongly Correlated Lattice Dipolar Bosons.

We propose a mechanism for liquid formation in strongly correlated lattice systems. The mechanism is based on an interplay between long-range attraction and superexchange processes. As an example, we study dipolar bosons in one-dimensional optical lattices. We present a perturbative theory and validate it in comparison with full density-matrix renormalization group simulations for the energetic and structural properties of different phases of the system, i.e., self-bound Mott insulator, liquid, and gas. We analyze the nonequilibrium properties and calculate the dynamic structure factor. Its structure differs in compressible and insulating phases. In particular, the low-energy excitations in compressible phases are linear phonons. We extract the speed of sound and analyze its dependence on dipolar interaction and density. We show that it exhibits a nontrivial behavior owing to the breaking of Galilean invariance. We argue that an experimental detection of this previously unknown quantum liquid could provide a fingerprint of the superexchange process and open intriguing possibilities for investigating non-Galilean invariant liquids.

Phase-space distributions of Bose–Einstein condensates in an optical lattice: optimal shaping and reconstruction

We apply quantum optimal control to shape the phase-space distribution of Bose–Einstein condensates in a one-dimensional optical lattice. By a time-dependent modulation of the lattice position, determined from optimal control theory, we prepare, in the phase space of each lattice site, translated and squeezed Gaussian states, and superpositions of Gaussian states. Complete reconstruction of these non-trivial states is performed through a maximum likelihood state tomography. As a practical application of our method to quantum simulations, we initialize the atomic wavefunction in an optimal Floquet-state superposition to enhance dynamical tunneling signals.

Engineering non-Hermitian skin effect with band topology in ultracold gases

Non-Hermitian skin effect(NHSE) describes a unique non-Hermitian phenomenon that all eigen-modes are localized near the boundary, and has profound impact on a wide range of bulk properties. In particular, topological systems with NHSE have stimulated extensive research interests recently, given the fresh theoretical and experimental challenges therein. Here we propose a readily implementable scheme for achieving NHSE with band topology in ultracold gases. Specifically, the scheme realizes the one-dimensional optical Raman lattice with two types of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and an additional laser-induced dissipation. By tuning the dissipation and the SOC strengths, NHSE and band topology can be individually controlled such that they can coexist in a considerable parameter regime. To identify the topological phase in the presence of NHSE, we have restored the bulk-boundary correspondence by invoking the non-Bloch band theory, and discussed the dynamic signals for detection. Our work serves as a guideline for engineering topological lattices with NHSE in the highly tunable environment of cold atoms, paving the way for future studies of exotic non-Hermitian physics in a genuine quantum many-body setting.