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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 21: Ultracold atoms and BEC - IV (with Q)
A 21.4: Talk
Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 15:15–15:30, N 1
An Optical Quasicrystal for Ultracold Atoms — •Konrad Viebahn1, Matteo Sbroscia1, Edward Carter1, Michael Höse1, Max Melchner1, and Ulrich Schneider1,2 — 1University of Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Ave, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK — 2Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Schellingstrasse 4, 80799 Munich, Germany
We will present our experimental progress towards realising an optical quasicrystal.
A quasicrystal is a long-range ordered structure with no translational symmetry. Correspondingly, quasicrystals lie at the interface between ordered and disordered systems. On the one hand, ultracold atoms in regular (periodic) optical lattices have been studied extensively in the past years. Major achievements in this field include the first observation of the superfluid-Mott insulator transition, the realisation of the Fermi-Hubbard model, and the realisation of topological models, such as the Haldane model. On the other hand, the recent observation of many-body localisation in quasi-random optical lattices triggered another area of interest: interacting disordered systems. Now, we hope to bridge the gap between ordered and disordered systems using ultracold atoms in an optical quasilattice.
Interestingly, quasicrystals often have high rotational symmetries, five-fold or eight-fold, for example, which are forbidden in periodic crystals by the crystallographic restriction theorem. Optical lattice experiments lend themselves to realising these special geometries by superimposing lattice beams in a rotationally symmetric fashion.