Topological orbital optical lattices with bosons

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Hemmerich
• Subject Area: Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 368544644

The emergence of topological properties in interacting many-body quantum systems is only vaguely understood to date. The use of bosonic atoms loaded into optical lattices opens up an entirely new, yet unexplored world of interacting topological many-body quantum systems not realized in electronic condensed matter. The objective of this proposal is the implementation and study of chiral Bose-Einstein condensates with interaction-induced topological excitations. The proposed research is based upon two recent works of a collaboration of the applicant with two international theory teams. In these works two realistic optical lattice scenarios are proposed and studied, which do not yield topological properties for a single atom, while in the case of many interacting atoms intriguing chiral ground states with rectified interaction-driven vortical currents arise, which exhibit topological excitations. The proposed research aims to identify the predicted topological character via studying the Berry curvature and the presence of chiral edge states.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants