Topological Insulators and Metals in Atomic Optical Lattices

Details Topological Insulators and Metals in Atomic Optical Lattices Topological Insulators and Metals in Atomic Optical Lattices

2009-01-26

arxiv.org/abs/0901.3921v1

Phys. Rev. A 79, 053639 (2009)

Physics

Condensed Matter

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

4+ pages, 5 color figures

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevA.79.053639

We propose the realization of topological quantum states with cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. We discuss an experimental setup that generates a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice in the presence of a light-induced periodic vector potential, which represents a realization of the Haldane model with cold atoms. We determine theoretically the conditions necessary for observing the topological states and show that two of the key conditions are: 1) the realization of sharp boundaries and 2) the minimization of any smoothly varying component of the confining potential. We argue that, unlike their condensed matter counterparts, cold atom topological quantum states can be i) "seen", by mapping out the characteristic chiral edge states, and ii) controlled, by controlling the periodic vector potential and the properties of the confining potential.

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