Topological Bogoliubov Quasiparticles from Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Flat Band System.

For bosons with flat energy dispersion, condensation can occur in different symmetry sectors. Here, we consider bosons in a kagome lattice with π-flux hopping, which, in the presence of mean-field interactions, exhibit degenerate condensates in the Γ and the K point. We analyze the excitation above both condensates and find strikingly different properties: For the K-point condensate, the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) Hamiltonian has broken particle-hole symmetry and exhibits a topologically trivial quasiparticle band structure. However, band flatness plays a key role in breaking the time-reversal symmetry of the BdG Hamiltonian for a Γ-point condensate. Consequently, its quasiparticle band structure exhibits nontrivial topology, characterized by nonzero Chern numbers and by the presence of edge states. Although quantum fluctuations energetically favor the K-point condensate, the interesting properties of the Γ-point condensate become relevant for anisotropic hopping. The topological properties of the Γ-point condensate get even richer in the presence of extended Bose-Hubbard interactions. We find a topological phase transition into a topological condensate characterized by high Chern number and also comment on the realization and detection of such excitations.

Experimental characterization of a quantum many-body system via higher-order correlations.

Quantum systems can be characterized by their correlations. Higher-order (larger than second order) correlations, and the ways in which they can be decomposed into correlations of lower order, provide important information about the system, its structure, its interactions and its complexity. The measurement of such correlation functions is therefore an essential tool for reading, verifying and characterizing quantum simulations. Although higher-order correlation functions are frequently used in theoretical calculations, so far mainly correlations up to second order have been studied experimentally. Here we study a pair of tunnel-coupled one-dimensional atomic superfluids and characterize the corresponding quantum many-body problem by measuring correlation functions. We extract phase correlation functions up to tenth order from interference patterns and analyse whether, and under what conditions, these functions factorize into correlations of lower order. This analysis characterizes the essential features of our system, the relevant quasiparticles, their interactions and topologically distinct vacua. From our data we conclude that in thermal equilibrium our system can be seen as a quantum simulator of the sine-Gordon model, relevant for diverse disciplines ranging from particle physics to condensed matter. The measurement and evaluation of higher-order correlation functions can easily be generalized to other systems and to study correlations of any other observable such as density, spin and magnetization. It therefore represents a general method for analysing quantum many-body systems from experimental data.

Cold atoms meet lattice gauge theory.

The central idea of this review is to consider quantum field theory models relevant for particle physics and replace the fermionic matter in these models by a bosonic one. This is mostly motivated by the fact that bosons are more 'accessible' and easier to manipulate for experimentalists, but this 'substitution' also leads to new physics and novel phenomena. It allows us to gain new information about among other things confinement and the dynamics of the deconfinement transition. We will thus consider bosons in dynamical lattices corresponding to the bosonic Schwinger or [Formula: see text] Bose-Hubbard models. Another central idea of this review concerns atomic simulators of paradigmatic models of particle physics theory such as the Creutz-Hubbard ladder, or Gross-Neveu-Wilson and Wilson-Hubbard models. This article is not a general review of the rapidly growing field-it reviews activities related to quantum simulations for lattice field theories performed by the Quantum Optics Theory group at ICFO and their collaborators from 19 institutions all over the world. Finally, we will briefly describe our efforts to design experimentally friendly simulators of these and other models relevant for particle physics. This article is part of the theme issue 'Quantum technologies in particle physics'.