Pairing of Fermions with Unequal Effective Charges in an Artificial Magnetic Field.

Artificial magnetic fields (AMFs) created for ultracold systems depend sensitively on the internal structure of the atoms. In a mixture, each component experiences a different AMF depending on its internal state. This enables the study of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer pairing of fermions with unequal effective charges. In this Letter, we investigate the superconducting (SC) transition of a system formed by such pairs as a function of field strength. We consider a homogeneous two-component Fermi gas of unequal effective charges but equal densities with attractive interactions. We find that the phase diagram is altered drastically compared to the usual balanced charge case. First, for some AMFs there is no SC transition and isolated SC phases are formed, reflecting the discrete Landau level (LL) structure. SC phases become reentrant both in AMF and temperature. For extremely high fields where both components are confined to their lowest LLs, the effect of the charge imbalance is suppressed. Charge asymmetry reduces the critical temperature even in the low-field semiclassical regime. We discuss a pair breaking mechanism due to the unequal Lorentz forces acting on the components of the Cooper pairs to identify the underlying physics.

Hall conductance in graphene with point defects.

We investigate the Hall conductance of graphene with point defects within the Kubo formalism, which allows us to calculate the Hall conductance without constraining the Fermi energy to lie in a gap. For pure graphene, which we model using a tight-binding Hamiltonian, we recover both the usual and the anomalous integer quantum Hall effects depending on the proximity to the Dirac points. We investigate the effect of point defects on Hall conduction by considering a dilute but regular array of point defects incorporated into the graphene lattice. We extend our calculations to include next nearest neighbor hopping, which breaks the bipartite symmetry of the lattice. We find that impurity atoms which are weakly coupled to the rest of the lattice result in gradual disappearance of the high conductance value plateaus. For such impurities, especially for vacancies which are decoupled from the lattice, strong modification of the Hall conductance occurs near the E = 0 eV line, as impurity states are highly localized. In contrast, if the impurities are strongly coupled, they create additional Hall conductance plateaus at the extremum values of the spectrum, signifying separate impurity bands. Hall conductance values within the original spectrum are not strongly modified.

The integer quantum Hall effect of a square lattice with an array of point defects.

The electronic properties of a square lattice under an applied perpendicular magnetic field in the presence of impurities or vacancies are investigated by the tight-binding method including up to second nearest neighbor interactions. These imperfections result in new gaps and bands in the Hofstadter butterfly even when the second order interactions break the bipartite symmetry. In addition, the whole spectrum of the Hall conduction is obtained by the Kubo formula for the corresponding cases. The results are in accordance with the Thouless-Kohmoto-Nightingale-den Nijs integers when the Fermi energy lies in an energy gap. We find that the states due to the vacancies or impurities with small hopping constants are highly localized and do not contribute to the Hall conduction. However, the impurities with high hopping constants result in new Hall plateaus with constant conduction of σ(xy) =± e(2)/h, since high hopping constants increase the probability of an electron contributing to the conduction.

Pairing and vortex lattices for interacting fermions in optical lattices with a large magnetic field.

We study the structure of a pairing order parameter for spin-1/2 fermions with attractive interactions in a square lattice under a uniform magnetic field. Because the magnetic translation symmetry gives a unique degeneracy in the single-particle spectrum, the pair wave function has both zero and finite-momentum components coexisting, and their relative phases are determined by a self-consistent mean-field theory. We present a microscopic calculation that can determine the vortex lattice structure in the superfluid phase for different flux densities. Phase transition from a Hofstadter insulator to a superfluid phase is also discussed.

Trapped Fermi gases in rotating optical lattices: realization and detection of the topological hofstadter insulator.

We consider a gas of noninteracting spinless fermions in a rotating optical lattice and calculate the density profile of the gas in an external confinement potential. The density profile exhibits distinct plateaus, which correspond to gaps in the single particle spectrum known as the Hofstadter butterfly. The plateaus result from insulating behavior whenever the Fermi energy lies within a gap. We discuss the necessary conditions to realize the Hofstadter insulator in a cold atom setup and show how the quantized Hall conductance can be measured from density profiles using the Streda formula.

Photonic band gap via quantum coherence in vortex lattices of Bose-Einstein condensates.

We investigate the optical response of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate with a vortex lattice. We find that it is possible for the vortex lattice to act as a photonic crystal and create photonic band gaps, by enhancing the refractive index of the condensate via a quantum coherent scheme. If high enough index contrast between the vortex core and the atomic sample is achieved, a photonic band gap arises depending on the healing length and the lattice spacing. A wide range of experimentally accessible parameters are examined and band gaps in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum are found. We also show how directional band gaps can be used to directly measure the rotation frequency of the condensate.

Internal waves and synchronized precession in a cold vapor.

Exchange in a Boltzmann gas of bosons with several internal states leads to collective transport of internal polarization. The internal dynamics can be understood as Larmor precession in the presence of a torque induced by atoms on each other via exchange coupling. A generalized Bloch equation that includes interatomic exchange effects as well as orbital motion in the gas is derived and used to interpret a recent experiment by Lewandowski et al. as an excitation of a collective wave of internal state polarization. It is shown that exchange leads to formation of domains in which precession frequencies are synchronized.