BEC on an optical hexagonal lattice

The technology with lasers has incredibly enriched our understanding of a huge width of systems. The ability to prepare honeycomb lattice offers chances to study graphene-type physics and beyond. In this PRL paper, the authors addressed the issues of what would befall a Bose-Einstein condensate moving on a honeycomb lattice. They employed Gross-Pitaviskii equation, which is a mean-field theory for describing superfluids, to compute the band structure and found that, arbitrary interaction would drastically alter the structure around the Dirac points. Is it possible to observe similar stuff using graphene instead of an artificial lattice ? One needs to have superfluid to flow on graphene. The candidate is cooper pairs condensate, which may be created by placing a superconductor in contact with a layer of graphene.

The ability to prepare ultracold atoms in graphenelike hexagonal optical lattices is expanding the types of systems in which Dirac dynamics can be observed. In such cold-atom systems, one could, in principle, study the interplay between superfluidity and Dirac physics. In a paper appearing in Physical Review Letters, Zhu Chen at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Biao Wu of Peking University use mean-field theory to calculate the Bloch bands of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined to a hexagonal optical lattice.

The Dirac point is a point in the Brillouin zone around which the energy-momentum relation is linear. Its existence in graphene is at the heart of this material’s unusual properties, in which electrons behave as massless particles. Chen and Wu’s study predicts, surprisingly, that in the analog cold-atom system, the topological structure of the Dirac point is drastically modified: intersecting tubelike bands appear around the original Dirac point, giving rise to a set of new Dirac points that form a closed curve. More importantly, this transformation should occur even with an arbitrarily small interaction between the atoms, upending the idea that such topological effects can only occur in the presence of a finite interaction between atoms.

The modified band structure prevents an adiabatic evolution of a state across the Dirac point, violating the usual quantum rule that a system remains in its instantaneous eigenstate if an external perturbation is sufficiently slow. This effect could be tested experimentally in a so-called triple-well structure, which is a combination of rectangular and triangular optical lattices. – Hari Dahal [http://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.065301]

Spin diffuses through interacting fermi gas

This is definitely a typical non-equilibrium problem. In their experiment, "A spin current is induced by spatially separating two spin components and observing their evolution in an external trapping potential." [Nature, 472:401(2011)] They found that, "interactions can be strong enough to reverse spin currents, with components of opposite spin reflecting off each other. Near equilibrium, we obtain the spin drag coefficient, the spin diffusivity and the spin susceptibility as a function of temperature on resonance and show that they obey universal laws at high temperatures. In the degenerate regime, the spin diffusivity approaches a value set by /m, the quantum limit of diffusion, where /m is Planck’s constant divided by 2π and m the atomic mass. For repulsive interactions, our measurements seem to exclude a metastable ferromagnetic state^{9, 10, 11}." For a review, click here.

Strong interaction makes better clocks !

I have not read this report in Science [331:1043 (2011)], but it catches my attention simply because of its claim ! Anyway, it should be funny to read. "Optical lattice clocks with extremely stable frequency are possible when many atoms are interrogated simultaneously, but this precision may come at the cost of systematic inaccuracy resulting from atomic interactions. Density-dependent frequency shifts can occur even in a clock that uses fermionic atoms if they are subject to inhomogeneous optical excitation. However, sufficiently strong interactions can suppress collisional shifts in lattice sites containing more than one atom. We demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach with a strontium lattice clock by reducing both the collisional frequency shift and its uncertainty to the level of 10⁻¹⁷. This result eliminates the compromise between precision and accuracy in a many-particle system; both will continue to improve as the number of particles increases. "

Molecular superfluidity ?

Bosons could become superfluid at low temperatures: it flows without feeling the friction. This is so due to the opening of an energy gap as bosons condense into a so-called macro-molecule in the presence of interactions. It is expected that such condensation happens at a number of bosons. Now it was demonstrated that, this number can be down to 9 pH2 molecules.

Clusters of para-hydrogen (pH2) have been predicted to exhibit superfluid behavior, but direct observation of this phenomenon has been elusive. Combining experiments and theoretical simulations, we have determined the size evolution of the superfluid response of pH2 clusters doped with carbon dioxide (CO2). Reduction of the effective inertia is observed when the dopant is surrounded by the pH2 solvent. This marks the onset of molecular superfluidity in pH2. The fractional occupation of solvation
rings around CO2 correlates with enhanced superfluid response for certain cluster sizes. [PRL 105, 133401 (2010)]

Producing FFLO states

Nature, 467: 535–536:

Atomic gases cooled down to nanokelvin temperatures and confined in optical or magnetic traps have helped to realize and investigate fundamental many-body quantum phases of matter^{1, 2}. An investigation by Liao et al.³ on page 567 of this issue now shows how such ultracold systems are also moving to centre stage in the quest for an exotic form of superconductivity — the elusive FFLO superconducting state of matter that was proposed more than 40 years ago by Fulde and Ferrell⁴ and Larkin and Ovchinnikov⁵.

In condensed-matter physics, an arbitrarily small attraction between fermions (particles with half-integer spin, such as electrons) of identical but opposing spin and momentum can lead to the formation of bound pairs that have bosonic character (bosons being particles with whole-integer spin). Under specific conditions, such pairs can undergo the phenomenon of Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC), transforming the many-body system into a 'giant matter wave' with spectacular frictionless-flow properties — a superconductor or superfluid is born. This remarkable outcome of pairing, first proposed by Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer (BCS), is considered to be the conventional way in which superconductivity emerges in a wide range of materials. In the world of atomic physics, the same pairing mechanism has been studied thoroughly in three dimensions with equal two-component gas mixtures of fermionic neutral atoms^{1, 2}, each component comprising atoms with one of two spin states (up or down). But what happens to such a BCS superfluid state if the two fermionic spin states are not present in equal numbers in the system?

In a solid-state material, such a spin-imbalance condition can be created by applying a magnetic field to the system. In ultracold atomic gases, a simple initial difference in the number of spin-up and spin-down atoms will do the job. Intuitively, one might think that an increasing mismatch in the number of spin-up and spin-down particles would make it harder for the opposing spins to meet each other and pair up, thus hindering superconductivity. And this is indeed what happens in experiments. Put in more technical terms, the Fermi surfaces of the two system components will have different sizes, and this difference will hamper the formation of the pairs and the ensuing BCS superfluid state (the Fermi surface is the boundary in momentum space that separates unoccupied states from occupied ones).

Fulde and Ferrell⁴, as well as Larkin and Ovchinnikov⁵, proposed a clever solution that would still allow a superfluid state to exist under spin-imbalanced conditions. They suggested a paired state in which the pairs are not at rest but instead have a net momentum. This FFLO state can be viewed as a kind of microscale phase separation, containing alternating superfluid regions and normal, non-superfluid regions, in which the extra atoms of the spin species that are in excess squeeze in. Although searches for such an exotically paired FFLO state have been carried out exhaustively in condensed-matter systems, and more recently in ultracold atomic gases, unambiguous experimental evidence has remained elusive. In their study, Liao et al.³ take a major step towards creating an FFLO state using ultracold fermionic atoms.