Tunable gauge potential for spinless particles in driven lattices

¹ Institut für Laserphysik, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
² Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, Barcelona, Spain
³ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, Germany

^a e-mail: jsimonet@physnet.uni-hamburg.de

Abstract

We present a universal method to create a tunable, artificial vector gauge potential for neutral particles trapped in an optical lattice. A suitable periodic shaking of the lattice allows to engineer a Peierls phase for the hopping parameters. This scheme thus allows one to address the atomic internal degrees of freedom independently. We experimentally demonstrate the realisation of such artificial potentials in a 1D lattice, which generate ground state superfluids at arbitrary non-zero quasimomentum [4].

This scheme offers fascinating possibilities to emulate synthetic magnetic fields in 2D lattices. In a triangular lattice, continuously tunable staggered fluxes are realised. Spontaneous symmetry breaking has recently been observed for a π-flux [23]. With the presented scheme, we are now able to study the influence of a small symmetry breaking perturbation.