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Immanuel Bloch

Publications and source records attributed to Immanuel Bloch.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
arXiv2016

Signatures of Many-Body Localization in a Controlled Open Quantum System

In the presence of disorder, an interacting closed quantum system can undergo many-body localization (MBL) and fail to thermalize. However, over long times even weak couplings to any thermal environment will necessarily thermalize the system and erase all signatures of MBL. This presents a challenge for experimental investigations of MBL, since no realistic system can ever be fully closed. In this work, we experimentally explore the thermalization dynamics of a localized system in the presence of controlled dissipation. Specifically, we find that photon scattering results in a stretched exponential decay of an initial density pattern with a rate that depends linearly on the scattering rate. We find that the resulting susceptibility increases significantly close to the phase transition point. In this regime, which is inaccessible to current numerical studies, we also find a strong dependence on interactions. Our work provides a basis for systematic studies of MBL in open systems and opens a route towards extrapolation of closed system properties from experiments.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2016

Spin pumping and measurement of spin currents in optical superlattices

We report on the experimental implementation of a spin pump with ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical superlattice. In the limit of isolated double wells it represents a 1D dynamical version of the quantum spin Hall effect. Starting from an antiferromagnetically ordered spin chain, we periodically vary the underlying spin-dependent Hamiltonian and observe a spin current without charge transport. We demonstrate a novel detection method to measure spin currents in optical lattices via superexchange oscillations emerging after a projection onto static double wells. Furthermore, we directly verify spin transport through in-situ measurements of the spins' center of mass displacement.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2016

Many-body interferometry of a Rydberg-dressed spin lattice

Ultracold atoms are an ideal platform to study strongly correlated phases of matter in and out of equilibrium. Much of the experimental progress in this field crucially relies on the control of the contact interaction between two atoms. Control of strong long-range interactions between distant ground state atoms has remained a long standing goal, opening the path towards the study of fundamentally new quantum many-body systems including frustrated or topological magnets and supersolids. Optical dressing of ground state atoms by near-resonant laser coupling to Rydberg states has been proposed as a versatile method to engineer such interactions. However, up to now the great potential of this approach for interaction control in a many-body setting has eluded experimental confirmation. Here we report the realisation of coherent Rydberg-dressing in an ultracold atomic lattice gas and directly probe the induced interaction potential using an interferometric technique with single atom sensitivity. We use this approach to implement a two-dimensional synthetic spin lattice and demonstrate its versatility by tuning the range and anisotropy of the effective spin interactions. Our measurements are in remarkable agreement with exact solutions of the many-body dynamics, providing further evidence for the high degree of accurate interaction control in these systems. Finally, we identify a collective many-body decay process, and discuss possible routes to overcome this current limitation of coherence times. Our work marks the first step towards the use of laser-controlled Rydberg interactions for the study of exotic quantum magnets in optical lattices.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2016

Periodically Driving a Many-Body Localized Quantum System

We experimentally study a periodically driven many-body localized system realized by interacting fermions in a one-dimensional quasi-disordered optical lattice. By preparing the system in a far-from-equilibrium state and monitoring the remains of an imprinted density pattern, we identify a localized phase at high drive frequencies and an ergodic phase at low ones. These two distinct phases are separated by a dynamical phase transition which depends on both the drive frequency and the drive strength. Our observations are quantitatively supported by numerical simulations and are directly connected to the change in the statistical properties of the effective Floquet Hamiltonian.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2016

Bloch state tomography using Wilson lines

Topology and geometry are essential to our understanding of modern physics, underlying many foundational concepts from high energy theories, quantum information, and condensed matter physics. In condensed matter systems, a wide range of phenomena stem from the geometry of the band eigenstates, which is encoded in the matrix-valued Wilson line for general multi-band systems. Using an ultracold gas of Rb atoms loaded in a honeycomb optical lattice, we realize strong-force dynamics in Bloch bands that are described by Wilson lines and observe an evolution in the band populations that directly reveals the band geometry. Our technique enables a full determination of band eigenstates, Berry curvature, and topological invariants, including single- and multi-band Chern and $Z_2$ numbers.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2016

Coupling Identical 1D Many-Body Localized Systems

We experimentally study the effects of coupling one-dimensional Many-Body Localized (MBL) systems with identical disorder. Using a gas of ultracold fermions in an optical lattice, we artifically prepare an initial charge density wave in an array of 1D tubes with quasi-random onsite disorder and monitor the subsequent dynamics over several thousand tunneling times. We find a strikingly different behavior between MBL and Anderson Localization. While the non-interacting Anderson case remains localized, in the interacting case any coupling between the tubes leads to a delocalization of the entire system.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2016

Exploring the many-body localization transition in two dimensions

One fundamental assumption in statistical physics is that generic closed quantum many-body systems thermalize under their own dynamics. Recently, the emergence of many-body localized systems has questioned this concept, challenging our understanding of the connection between statistical physics and quantum mechanics. Here we report on the observation of a many-body localization transition between thermal and localized phases for bosons in a two-dimensional disordered optical lattice. With our single site resolved measurements we track the relaxation dynamics of an initially prepared out-of-equilibrium density pattern and find strong evidence for a diverging length scale when approaching the localization transition. Our experiments mark the first demonstration and in-depth characterization of many-body localization in a regime not accessible with state-of-the-art simulations on classical computers.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2015

Microscopic Observation of Pauli Blocking in Degenerate Fermionic Lattice Gases

The Pauli exclusion principle is one of the most fundamental manifestations of quantum statistics. Here, we report on its local observation in a spin-polarized degenerate gas of fermions in an optical lattice. We probe the gas with single-site resolution using a new generation quantum gas microscope avoiding the common problem of light induced losses. In the band insulating regime, we measure a strong local suppression of particle number fluctuations and a low local entropy per atom. Our work opens a new avenue for studying quantum correlations in fermionic quantum matter both in and out of equilibrium.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2015

Direct probing of the Mott crossover in the SU($N$) Fermi-Hubbard model

The Fermi-Hubbard model (FHM) is a cornerstone of modern condensed matter theory. Developed for interacting electrons in solids, which typically exhibit SU($2$) symmetry, it describes a wide range of phenomena, such as metal to insulator transitions and magnetic order. Its generalized SU($N$)-symmetric form, originally applied to multi-orbital materials such as transition-metal oxides, has recently attracted much interest owing to the availability of ultracold SU($N$)-symmetric atomic gases. Here we report on a detailed experimental investigation of the SU($N$)-symmetric FHM using local probing of an atomic gas of ytterbium in an optical lattice to determine the equation of state through different interaction regimes. We prepare a low-temperature SU($N$)-symmetric Mott insulator and characterize the Mott crossover, representing important steps towards probing predicted novel SU($N$)-magnetic phases.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2015

A Thouless Quantum Pump with Ultracold Bosonic Atoms in an Optical Superlattice

More than 30 years ago, Thouless introduced the concept of a topological charge pump that would enable the robust transport of charge through an adiabatic cyclic evolution of the underlying Hamiltonian. In contrast to classical transport, the transported charge was shown to be quantized and purely determined by the topology of the pump cycle, making it robust to perturbations. On a fundamental level, the quantized charge transport can be connected to a topological invariant, the Chern number, first introduced in the context of the integer quantum Hall effect. A Thouless quantum pump may therefore be regarded as a 'dynamical' version of the integer quantum Hall effect. Here, we report on the realization of such a topological charge pump using ultracold bosonic atoms that form a Mott insulator in a dynamically controlled optical superlattice potential. By taking in-situ images of the atom cloud, we observe a quantized deflection per pump cycle. We reveal the genuine quantum nature of the pump by showing that, in contrast to ground state particles, a counterintuitive reversed deflection occurs when particles are prepared in the first excited band. Furthermore, we were able to directly demonstrate that the system undergoes a controlled topological phase transition in higher bands when tuning the superlattice parameters.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2015

Designing Frustrated Quantum Magnets with Laser-Dressed Rydberg Atoms

We show how a broad class of lattice spin-1/2 models with angular- and distance-dependent couplings can be realized with cold alkali atoms stored in optical or magnetic trap arrays. The effective spin-1/2 is represented by a pair of atomic ground states, and spin-spin interactions are obtained by admixing van der Waals interactions between fine-structure split Rydberg states with laser light. The strengths of the diagonal spin interactions as well as the "flip-flop", and "flip-flip" and "flop-flop" interactions can be tuned by exploiting quantum interference, thus realizing different spin symmetries. The resulting energy scales of interactions compare well with typical temperatures and decoherence time-scales, making the exploration of exotic forms of quantum magnetism, including emergent gauge theories and compass models, accessible within state-of-the-art experiments.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

Spatially Resolved Detection of a Spin-Entanglement Wave in a Bose-Hubbard Chain

Entanglement is an essential property of quantum many-body systems. However, its local detection is challenging and was so far limited to spin degrees of freedom in ion chains. Here we measure entanglement between the spins of atoms located on two lattice sites in a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard chain which features both local spin- and particle-number fluctuations. Starting with an initially localized spin impurity, we observe an outwards propagating entanglement wave and show quantitatively how entanglement in the spin sector rapidly decreases with increasing particle-number fluctuations in the chain.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2015

Microscopy of a scalable superatom

Strong interactions can amplify quantum effects such that they become important on macroscopic scales. Controlling these coherently on a single particle level is essential for the tailored preparation of strongly correlated quantum systems and opens up new prospects for quantum technologies. Rydberg atoms offer such strong interactions which lead to extreme nonlinearities in laser coupled atomic ensembles. As a result, multiple excitation of a Micrometer sized cloud can be blocked while the light-matter coupling becomes collectively enhanced. The resulting two-level system, often called "superatom", is a valuable resource for quantum information, providing a collective Qubit. Here we report on the preparation of two orders of magnitude scalable superatoms utilizing the large interaction strength provided by Rydberg atoms combined with precise control of an ensemble of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. The latter is achieved with sub shot noise precision by local manipulation of a two-dimensional Mott insulator. We microscopically confirm the superatom picture by in-situ detection of the Rydberg excitations and observe the characteristic square root scaling of the optical coupling with the number of atoms. Furthermore, we verify the presence of entanglement in the prepared states and demonstrate the coherent manipulation of the superatom. Finally, we investigate the breakdown of the superatom picture when two Rydberg excitations are present in the system, which leads to dephasing and a loss of coherence.

physics.atom-ph↗
arXiv2015

Observation of many-body localization of interacting fermions in a quasi-random optical lattice

We experimentally observe many-body localization of interacting fermions in a one-dimensional quasi-random optical lattice. We identify the many-body localization transition through the relaxation dynamics of an initially-prepared charge density wave. For sufficiently weak disorder the time evolution appears ergodic and thermalizing, erasing all remnants of the initial order. In contrast, above a critical disorder strength a significant portion of the initial ordering persists, thereby serving as an effective order parameter for localization. The stationary density wave order and the critical disorder value show a distinctive dependence on the interaction strength, in agreement with numerical simulations. We connect this dependence to the ubiquitous logarithmic growth of entanglement entropy characterizing the generic many-body localized phase.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2014

Far-from-equilibrium spin transport in Heisenberg quantum magnets

We study experimentally the far-from-equilibrium dynamics in ferromagnetic Heisenberg quantum magnets realized with ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. After controlled imprinting of a spin spiral pattern with adjustable wave vector, we measure the decay of the initial spin correlations through single-site resolved detection. On the experimentally accessible timescale of several exchange times we find a profound dependence of the decay rate on the wave vector. In one-dimensional systems we observe diffusion-like spin transport with a dimensionless diffusion coefficient of 0.22(1). We show how this behavior emerges from the microscopic properties of the closed quantum system. In contrast to the one-dimensional case, our transport measurements for two-dimensional Heisenberg systems indicate anomalous super-diffusion.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2014

Microscopy of many-body states in optical lattices

Ultracold atoms in optical lattices have proven to provide an extremely clean and controlled setting to explore quantum many-body phases of matter. Now, imaging of atoms in such lattice structures has reached the level of single-atom sensitive detection combined with the highest resolution down to the level of individual lattice sites. This has opened up fundamentally new opportunities for the characterization and the control of quantum many-body systems. Here we give a brief overview of this field and explore the opportunities offered for future research.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2014

An Aharonov-Bohm interferometer for determining Bloch band topology

The geometric structure of an energy band in a solid is fundamental for a wide range of many-body phenomena in condensed matter and is uniquely characterized by the distribution of Berry curvature over the Brillouin zone. In analogy to an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer that measures the magnetic flux penetrating a given area in real space, we realize an atomic interferometer to measure Berry flux in momentum space. We demonstrate the interferometer for a graphene-type hexagonal lattice, where it has allowed us to directly detect the singular $π$ Berry flux localized at each Dirac point. We show that the interferometer enables one to determine the distribution of Berry curvature with high momentum resolution. Our work forms the basis for a general framework to fully characterize topological band structures and can also facilitate holonomic quantum computing through controlled exploitation of the geometry of Hilbert space.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗