arXiv subjects

Ke-Ji Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Ke-Ji Chen.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Chiral Dynamics Near Intra- and Inter-Band Exceptional Points under Dissipative Spin-Orbital-Angular-Momentum Coupling

We study the parametric chiral dynamics of atoms under dissipative spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupling (SOAMC). With atoms confined in the ring-shaped potential of the Laguerre-Gaussian Raman beams, the SOAMC not only couples the atomic center-of-mass angular momentum to the hyperfine spins, but also mixes different bands in the radial direction. This gives rise to a series of exceptional points of two types, the intra-band and the inter-band. Leveraging the topology of the spectral Riemann surface close to these exceptional points, we demonstrate the path-dependent chiral transfer of atoms to the higher-lying bands, by evolving the system along closed loops in the parameter space. Specifically, we illustrate two distinct scenarios, characterized by different mechanisms, where the atoms can be transferred to designated SOAMC-dressed bands. Our work demonstrates the rich exceptional structure in atom gases under dissipative SOAMC, and offers a novel route toward populating higher bands.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Dynamically generating superflow in a bosonic ring via phase imprinting

Phase imprinting enables the dynamic generation of superflow in bosonic atoms, effectively overcoming traditional limitations such as vortex number constraints and heating effects. However, the mechanisms underlying superflow formation remain insufficiently understood. In this work, we reveal these mechanisms by studying the time evolution of the transferred total angular momentum and the quantized current throughout the phase imprinting process, achieved through numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger and Gross-Pitaevskii equations. We demonstrate that the Bose gas dynamically acquires angular momentum through the density depletion induced by the phase imprinting potential, whereas quantized currents emerge from azimuthal phase slips accompanied by complete density depletions. Regarding the impact of system parameters, such as interactions, we find that interactions hinder superflow formation, as the azimuthal density distribution becomes less susceptible to the phase imprinting potential. Our findings offer microscopic insights into the dynamic development of superflow during the phase imprinting process and provide valuable guidance for ongoing experimental efforts.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Dynamic generation of superflow in a fermionic ring through phase imprinting

We study the dynamic generation of persistent current by phase imprinting fermionic atoms in a ring geometry. Mediated by the pairing interaction, the Fermi condensate dynamically acquires a quantized current by developing azimuthal phase slips, as well as density and pairing-order-parameter depletions. Resorting to the Bogolioubov-de Gennes formalism, we investigate the time evolution of the transferred total angular momentum and the quantized superfluid current throughout the phase-imprinting process. This enables a detailed analysis of the impact of interaction, as well as different initial pairing states, on the superflow formation. In particular, we show that, as the condensate is tuned toward the Bose-Einstein-condensate side of the Feshbach resonance, the azimuthal density distribution becomes less susceptible to the phase imprinting potential, leading to smaller quantized current under the same imprinting parameters. Our results offer microscopic insights into the dynamic development of superflow in the phase-imprinting process, and are helpful for the ongoing experimental effort.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Emergence of Surface Superconductivity through Interference in Superconducting-proximity Topological Insulators

Superconducting-proximity topological insulators (STIs) have garnered significant research attention over the past two decades. In this Letter, we demonstrate that a low-dimensional STI in the topological-nontrivial phase (TP) exhibits an interference-induced surface (boundary) superconductivity with the surface critical temperature $T_{cs}$ significantly higher than the bulk one $T_{cb}$. Such a surface superconductivity is built due to the interference of the scattering quasiparticle states, rather than due to the presence of the topological bound states (TBSs). As the system goes deeper into the TP, the surface exhibits a crossover from the interference- to TBS-induced phase, where the surface enhancement of superconductivity is governed by the TBSs. Our study unveils a substantial variation in the maximal $T_{cs}$ along this crossover, attaining values being twice the maximal bulk critical temperature of the STI. Beyond shedding light on the nature of surface superconductivity in STIs, our study introduces a tangible method for experimentally manipulating their critical superconducting temperatures.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2022

Spin-orbital-angular-momentum-coupled quantum gases

We briefly review the recent progress of theories and experiments on spin-orbital-angular-momentum (SOAM)-coupled quantum gases. The coupling between the intrinsic degree of freedom of particles and their external orbital motions widely exists in universe, and leads to a broad variety of fundamental phenomena both in the classical physics and quantum mechanics. Recent realization of synthetic SOAM coupling in cold atoms has attracted a great deal of attention, and stimulates a large amount of considerations on exotic quantum phases in both Bose and Fermi gases. In this review, we present a basic idea of engineering SOAM coupling in neutral atoms, starting from a semiclassical description of atom-light interaction. Unique features of the single-particle physics in the presence of SOAM coupling are discussed. The intriguing ground-state quantum phases of weakly interacting Bose gases are introduced, with emphasis on a so-called angular stripe phase, which has yet been observed at present. It is demonstrated how to generate a stable giant vortex in a SOAM-coupled Fermi superfluid. We also discuss topological characters of a Fermi superfluid in the presence of SOAM coupling. We then introduce the experimental achievement of SOAM coupling in $^{87}$Rb Bose gases and its first observation of phase transitions. The most recent development of SOAM-coupled Bose gases in experiments is also summarized. Regarding the controllability of ultracold quantum gases, it opens a new era, on the quantum simulation point of view, to study the fundamental physics resulted from SOAM coupling as well as newly emergent quantum phases.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Angular topological superfluid and topological vortex in an ultracold Fermi gas

We show that pairing in an ultracold Fermi gas under spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupling (SOAMC) can acquire topological characters encoded in the quantized angular degrees of freedom. The resulting topological superfluid is the angular analog of its counterpart in a one-dimensional Fermi gas with spin-orbit coupling, but characterized by a Zak phase defined in the angular-momentum space. Upon tuning the SOAMC parameters, a topological phase transition occurs, which is accompanied by the closing of the quasiparticle excitation gap. Remarkably, a topological vortex state can also be stabilized by deforming the Fermi surface, which is topologically non-trivial in both the coordinate and angular-momentum space, offering interesting potentials for applications in quantum information and quantum control. We discuss how the topological phase transition and the exotic vortex state can be detected experimentally.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Molecular state in a spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupled Fermi gas

We study the two-body bound states in a spin-orbital-angular-momentum (SOAM) coupled quantum gas of fermions. Two different configurations are considered: an attractive $s$-wave interaction exists between two spin species that are SOAM coupled; and an atom with SOAM coupled internal spins interacts state-selectively with another atom. For both cases, we identify the condition for the emergence of molecular states with finite total angular momenta.These molecular states with quantized total angular momenta correspond to the SOAM-coupling-induced vortices in the corresponding Fermi superfluid. We propose to detect the molecules through Raman spectroscopy with Laguerre-Gaussian lasers. As the molecular states can form above the superfluid temperature, they offer an experimentally more accessible route toward the study of the underlying pairing mechanism under SOAM coupling.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Generating Giant Vortex in a Fermi Superfluid via Spin-Orbital-Angular-Momentum Coupling

Spin-orbital-angular-momentum (SOAM) coupling has been realized in recent experiments of Bose-Einstein condensates [Chen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 113204 (2018) and Zhang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 110402 (2019)], where the orbital angular momentum imprinted upon bosons leads to quantized vortices. For fermions, such an exotic synthetic gauge field can provide fertile ground for fascinating pairing schemes and rich superfluid phases, which are yet to be explored. Here we demonstrate how SOAM coupling stabilizes vortices in Fermi superfluids through a unique mechanism that can be viewed as the angular analog to that of the spin-orbit-coupling-induced Fulde-Ferrell state under a Fermi surface deformation. Remarkably, the vortex size is comparable with the beam waist of Raman lasers generating the SOAM coupling, which is typically much larger than previously observed vortices in Fermi superfluids. With tunable size and core structure, these giant vortex states provide unprecedented experimental access to topological defects in Fermi superfluids.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

Ground-state phase diagram and excitation spectrum of a Bose-Einstein condensate with spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupling

We investigate the ground-state phase diagram and excitation spectrum of an interacting spinor Bose-Einstein condensate with spin-orbital-angular-momentum (SOAM) coupling realized in recent experiments by introducing atomic Raman transition with a pair of copropagating Laguerre-Gaussian laser beams that carry different orbital angular momenta (OAM) [Chen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 113204 (2018) and Zhang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 110402 (2019)]. Because of the ground-state degeneracy of the single-particle Hamiltonian at vanishing detuning, several angular-stripe phases, which are superposition of states with different angular quantum numbers, appear in the phase diagram. However, these phases normally exist at small detuning, which makes them hard to be probed in experiments. We show that for a large OAM difference of the laser beams, an asymmetric kind of angular-stripe phase can exist even at large detuning. The excitation spectra in different phases exhibit distinct features: In the angular-stripe phase there exist two gapless bands corresponding to the broken U(1) and rotational symmetries, while in the half-skyrmion phase the gapless band exhibits a roton-like structure. Our predictions of the angular-stripe phases and the low-energy excitations can be examined in recently realized BECs with SOAM coupling.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Unfolding multi-particle quantum correlations hidden in decoherence

Quantum coherence is a fundamental characteristic to distinguish quantum systems from their classical counterparts. Though quantum coherence persists in isolated non-interacting systems, interactions inevitably lead to decoherence, which is in general believed to cause the lost of quantum correlations. Here, we show that, accompanying to the single-particle decoherence, interactions build up quantum correlations on the two-, three-, and multi-particle levels. Using the quantitative solutions of the quantum dynamics of a condensate occupying two modes, such as two bands of an optical lattice, we find out that such dynamically emergent multi-particle correlations not only reveal how interactions control the quantum coherence of a many-body system in a highly intriguing means, but also evince the rise of exotic fragmented condensates, which are difficult to access at the ground state. We further develop a generic interferometry that can be used in experiments to measure high order correlation functions directly.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Nematic ferromagnetism on the Lieb lattice

We discuss the properties of possible ferromagnetic orders on the Lieb lattice. We show that the presence of a quadratic-flat band crossing point (QFBCP) at half filling will dramatically affect the magnetic ordering. In the presence of a weak on-site repulsive interaction, we find the ground state is a nematic ferromagnetic order with simultaneously broken of time-reversal and rotational symmetries. When the interaction strength increases, the rotational symmetry will restore at some critical value, and the system enters a conventional ferromagnetic regime. We also point out that the spin gap in both the nematic and conventional ferromagnetic phases is of the order of interaction. This observation suggests that these magnetic orders can be realized and detected in cold atomic systems with present technology.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Signatures of Bose-Einstein condensation in an optical lattice

We discuss typical experimental signatures for the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of an ultracold Bose gas in an inhomogeneous optical lattice at finite temperature. Applying the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov-Popov formalism, we calculate quantities such as the momentum-space density distribution, visibility and peak width as the system is tuned through the superfluid to normal phase transition. Different from previous studies, we consider systems with fixed total particle number, which is of direct experimental relevance. We show that the onset of BEC is accompanied by sharp features in all these signatures, which can be probed via typical time-of-flight imaging techniques. In particular, we find a two-platform structure in the peak width across the phase transition. We show that the onset of condensation is related to the emergence of the higher platform, which can be used as an effective experimental signature.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗