Phonon-induced artificial magnetic fields in optical lattices

¹ Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford - Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK, EU
² Keble College, University of Oxford - Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PG, UK, EU

Corresponding author: dieter.jaksch@physics.ox.ac.uk

Received: 14 August 2008
Accepted: 4 December 2008

Abstract

We investigate the effect of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate on a system of immersed impurity atoms trapped by an optical lattice. We analytically show that for a one-dimensional, ring-shaped setup the coupling of the impurities to the Bogoliubov phonons of the condensate leads to a non-trivial phase in the impurity hopping. The presence of this phase can be tested by observing a drift in the transport properties of the impurities. These results are quantitatively confirmed by a numerically exact simulation of a two-mode Bose-Hubbard model. We also give analytical expressions for the occurring phase terms for a two-dimensional setup. The phase realises an artificial magnetic field and can, for instance, be used for the simulation of the quantum Hall effect using atoms in an optical lattice.