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Coherent multi-flavour spin dynamics in a fermionic quantum gas

Nature Physics volume 8, pages 813–818 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Microscopic spin-interaction processes are fundamental for global static and dynamical magnetic properties of many-body systems. Quantum gases as pure and well-isolated systems offer intriguing possibilities to study basic magnetic processes including non-equilibrium dynamics. Here, we report on the realization of a well-controlled fermionic spinor gas in an optical lattice with tunable effective spin ranging from 1/2 to 9/2. We observe long-lived intrinsic spin oscillations and investigate the transition from two-body to many-body dynamics. The latter involves a complex interplay of spin and spatial degrees of freedom and implies an instability of an initially band insulating state. Using an external magnetic field we control the dimensionality of the system and tune the spin oscillations in and out of resonance. Our results open new routes to study quantum magnetism of fermionic particles beyond conventional spin 1/2 systems.

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Figure 1: Principles of fermionic lattice spin dynamics.
Figure 2: Coherent fermionic spin dynamics.
Figure 3: Coherent multi-flavour spin dynamics of fermionic atoms.
Figure 4: Transition from on-site to many-body spin dynamics.
Figure 5: Simplified sketch of processes originating from the combination of spin-changing collisions and tunnelling.
Figure 6: Numerical simulation of a four-well system.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge stimulating discussions with E. Demler, F. Deuretzbacher, A. Eckardt, T.-L. Ho, M. Lewenstein, A. Sotnikov and M.W. Zwierlein and thank T. Hanna and L. Cook for providing us with calculated values of the scattering lengths. This work has been financially supported by DFG grant FOR 801.

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  1. Jasper S. Krauser and Jannes Heinze: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Laser-Physik, Universität Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany

    Jasper S. Krauser, Jannes Heinze, Nick Fläschner, Sören Götze, Ole Jürgensen, Dirk-Sören Lühmann, Christoph Becker & Klaus Sengstock

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Contributions

J.S.K., J.H. and N.F. performed the measurements and collected the data. J.H. performed the numerical two-body calculations. O.J. and D.S.L. performed the numerical simulations of the four-well system. All authors contributed substantially to the discussion and interpretation of the data and results and to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Klaus Sengstock.

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Krauser, J., Heinze, J., Fläschner, N. et al. Coherent multi-flavour spin dynamics in a fermionic quantum gas. Nature Phys 8, 813–818 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2409

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