Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 15: Focussed Session: Correlations in Topological Bands (jointly with DS, HL, MA, and TT)

O 15.5: Topical Talk

Monday, March 11, 2013, 17:15–17:45, H20

Probing Topological Bloch Bands Using Ultracold Quantum Gases — •Immanuel Bloch — Max-Planck Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching, Germany — Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, München, Germany

Over the past years, ultracold quantum gases have emerged as highly controllable testbeds for probing fundamental condensed matter phenomena. In my talk, I will show how strong effective magnetic fields can be realized for neutral atoms held in an especially engineered optical lattice potential. The effective field strengths that can be reached, are 10-100 times larger than what can be achieved even with the strongest magnets in real material systems, allowing one to take the artificial quantum matter into a new parameter regime. Furthermore, I will show how by carrying out matter wave interferometry within the Bloch bands, we have been able to measure the Zak phase - the Berry phase in one dimension - and to directly determine topological invariants. As an example, I will present results for the celebrated Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model of polyacetylene that can be modelled by using optical superlattice potentials.