Creating artificial magnetic fields for cold atoms by photon-assisted tunneling

Published 4 February 2011 Europhysics Letters Association
, , Citation A. R. Kolovsky 2011 EPL 93 20003 DOI 10.1209/0295-5075/93/20003

0295-5075/93/2/20003

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple setup for introducing an artificial magnetic field for neutral atoms in 2D optical lattices. This setup is based on the phenomenon of photon-assisted tunneling and involves a low-frequency periodic driving of the optical lattice. This low-frequency driving does not affect the electronic structure of the atom and can be easily realized by the same means which are employed to create the lattice. We also address the problem of detecting this effective magnetic field. In particular, we study the center-of-mass wave packet dynamics, which is shown to exhibit certain features of cyclotron dynamics of a classical charged particle.

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10.1209/0295-5075/93/20003