arXiv subjects

Xing-Can Yao

Publications and source records attributed to Xing-Can Yao.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Interference and short-range correlation in fermionic Hubbard gases

The interference patterns of ultracold atoms, observed after ballistic expansion from optical lattices, encode essential information about strongly correlated lattice systems, including phase coherence and non-local correlations. While the interference of lattice bosons has been extensively investigated, quantitative studies of the lattice fermion interference remain challenging. Here, we report the observation and quantitative characterization of interference patterns in low-temperature, homogeneous fermionic Hubbard gases. We develop a novel method to extract first-order correlations from interference patterns, which directly reflect the short-range phase coherence of lattice fermions. Mapping the nearest-neighbor correlations as a function of lattice filling and interaction strength, we observe a crossover from a metal to a Mott insulator. Moreover, at half filling, the measured correlations agree well with quantum Monte Carlo calculations and remain finite in the regime of strong repulsion, revealing virtual tunneling processes driven by quantum fluctuations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Feshbach spectroscopy of ultracold mixtures of $^{6}{\rm Li}$ and $^{164}{\rm Dy}$ atoms

We report on the observation of Feshbach resonances in ultracold $^6\mathrm{Li}$-$^{164}\mathrm{Dy}$ mixtures, where $^6\mathrm{Li}$ atoms are respectively prepared in their three lowest spin states, and $^{164}\mathrm{Dy}$ atoms are prepared in their lowest energy state. We observe 21 interspecies scattering resonances over a magnetic field range from 0 to \SI{702}{\gauss} using atom loss spectroscopy, three of which exhibit relatively broad widths. These broad resonances provide precise control over the interspecies interaction strength, enabling the study of strongly interacting effects in $^6\mathrm{Li}$-$^{164}\mathrm{Dy}$ mixtures. Additionally, we observe a well-isolated interspecies resonance at 700.1 G, offering a unique platform to explore novel impurity physics, where heavy dipolar $^{164}\mathrm{Dy}$ atoms are immersed in a strongly interacting Fermi superfluid of $^6\mathrm{Li}$ atoms.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Homogeneous fermionic Hubbard gases in a flat-top optical lattice

Fermionic atoms in a large-scale, homogeneous optical lattice provide an ideal quantum simulator for investigating the fermionic Hubbard model, yet achieving this remains challenging. Here, by developing a hybrid potential that integrates a flat-top optical lattice with an optical box trap, we successfully realize the creation of three-dimensional, homogeneous fermionic Hubbard gases across approximately $8\times10^5$ lattice sites. This homogeneous system enables us to capture a well-defined energy band occupation that aligns perfectly with the theoretical calculations for a zero-temperature, ideal fermionic Hubbard model. Furthermore, by employing novel radio-frequency spectroscopy, we precisely measure the doublon fraction $D$ as a function of interaction strength $U$ and temperature $T$, respectively. The crossover from metal to Mott insulator is detected, where $D$ smoothly decreases with increasing $U$. More importantly, we observe a non-monotonic temperature dependence in $D$, revealing the Pomeranchuk effect and the development of extended antiferromagnetic correlations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Observation of the antiferromagnetic phase transition in the fermionic Hubbard model

The fermionic Hubbard model (FHM)[1], despite its simple form, captures essential features of strongly correlated electron physics. Ultracold fermions in optical lattices[2, 3] provide a clean and well-controlled platform for simulating FHM. Doping its antiferromagnetic ground state at half filling, various exotic phases are expected to arise in the FHM simulator, including stripe order[4], pseudogap[5], and d-wave superconductors[6], offering valuable insights into high-temperature superconductivity[7{9]. Although notable progress, such as the observation of antiferromagnetic correlations over short[10] and extended distances[11], has been obtained, the antiferromagnetic phase has yet to be realized due to the significant challenges of achieving low temperatures in a large and uniform quantum simulator. Here, we report the observation of the antiferromagnetic phase transition in a three-dimensional fermionic Hubbard system comprising lithium-6 atoms in a uniform optical lattice with approximately 800,000 sites. When the interaction strength, temperature, and doping concentration are finely tuned to approach their respective critical values, sharp increases in the spin structure factor (SSF) are observed. These observations can be well described by a power-law divergence, with a critical exponent of 1.396 from the Heisenberg universality class[12]. At half filling and with optimal interaction strength, the measured SSF reaches 123(8), signifying the establishment of an antiferromagnetic phase. Our results set the stage for exploring the low-temperature phase diagram of FHM.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Observation and quantification of pseudogap in unitary Fermi gases

The nature of pseudogap lies at the heart of strongly-interacting superconductivity and superfluidity. With known pairing interactions, unitary Fermi gases provide an ideal testbed to verify whether a pseudogap can arise from many-body pairing. Here we report the observation of the long-sought pair-fluctuation-driven pseudogap in homogeneous unitary Fermi gases of lithium-6 atoms, by precisely measuring the spectral function through momentum-resolved microwave spectroscopy without the serious effects of final-state effect. We find a large pseudogap above the superfluid transition. The inverse pair lifetime exhibits a thermally-activated exponential behavior, uncovering the microscopic virtual pair breaking and recombination mechanism. The obtained large, T-independent single-particle scattering rate is comparable with that set by the Planckian limit. Our findings quantitatively characterize the pseudogap in strongly-interacting Fermi gases, highlighting the role of preformed pairing as a precursor to superfluidity.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Second sound with ultracold atoms: A brief historical account

We briefly review the research on second sound in ultracold atomic physics, with emphasis on strongly interacting unitary Fermi gases with infinitely large $s$-wave scattering length. Second sound is a smoking-gun feature of superfluidity in any quantum superfluids. The observation and characterization of second sound in ultracold quantum gases has been a long-standing challenge, and in recent years there are rapid developments due to the experimental realization of a uniform box-trap potential. The purpose of this review is to present a brief historical account of the key research activities on second sound over the past two decades. We summarize the initial theoretical works that reveal the characteristics of second sound in a unitary Fermi gas, and introduce its first observation in a highly elongated harmonic trap. We then discuss the most recent measurement on second sound attenuation in a uniform setup, which may open a new era to understand quantum transport near quantum criticality in the strongly interacting regime. The observation of second sound in homogeneous weakly interacting Bose condensates in both two and three dimensions are also briefly introduced.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Beyond Gaussian pair fluctuation theory for strongly interacting Fermi gases II: The broken-symmetry phase

We theoretically study the thermodynamic properties of a strongly interacting Fermi gas at the crossover from a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), by applying a recently outlined strong-coupling theory that includes pair fluctuations beyond the commonly-used many-body $T$-matrix or ladder approximation at the Gaussian level. The beyond Gaussian pair fluctuation (GPF) theory always respects the exact thermodynamic relations and recovers the Bogoliubov theory of molecules in the BEC limit with a nearly correct molecule-molecule scattering length. We show that the beyond-GPF theory predicts quantitatively accurate ground-state properties at the BEC-BCS crossover, in good agreement with the recent measurement by Horikoshi \textit{et al.} in Phys. Rev. X \textbf{7}, 041004 (2017). In the unitary limit with infinitely large $s$-wave scattering length, the beyond-GPF theory predicts a reliable universal energy equation of state up to 0.6$T_c$, where $T_c$ is the superfluid transition temperature at unitarity. The theory predicts a Bertsch parameter $ξ\simeq 0.365$ at zero temperature, in good agreement with the latest quantum Monte Carlo result $ξ= 0.367(7)$ and the latest experimental measurement $ξ= 0.367(9)$. We attribute the excellent and wide applicability of the beyond-GPF theory in the broken-symmetry phase to the reasonable re-summation of Feynman diagrams following a dimensional $ε$-expansion analysis near four dimensions ($d=4-ε$), which gives rise to accurate predictions at the second order $\mathcal{O}(ε^2)$. Our work indicates the possibility of further improving the strong-coupling theory of strongly interacting fermions based on the systematic inclusion of large-loop Feynman diagrams at higher orders $\mathcal{O}(ε^n)$ with $n\ge 3$.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Observation of the density dependence of the closed-channel fraction of a $^6$Li superfluid

Atomic Fermi gases provide an ideal platform for studying the pairing and superfluid physics, using a Feshbach resonance between closed channel molecular states and open channel scattering states. Of particular interest is the strongly interacting regime. We show that the closed-channel fraction $Z_{cc}$ provides an effective probe for the important many-body interacting effects, especially through its density dependence, which is absent from two-body theoretical predictions. Here we measure $Z_{cc}$ as a function of interaction strength and the Fermi temperature $T_\text{F}$ in a trapped $^6$Li superfluid throughout the entire BCS--BEC crossover, in quantitative agreement with theory when important thermal contributions outside the superfluid core are taken into account. Away from the deep BEC regime, the fraction $Z_{cc}$ is sensitive to $T_\text{F}$. In particular, our data show $Z_{cc} \propto T_\text{F}^α$ with $α=1/2$ at unitarity, in quantitative agreement with calculations of a two-channel pairing fluctuation theory, and $α$ increases rapidly into the BCS regime, reflecting many-body interaction effects as predicted.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Dynamic formation of quasicondensate and spontaneous vortices in a strongly interacting Fermi gas

We report an experimental study of quench dynamics across the superfluid transition temperature $T_c$ in a strongly interacting Fermi gas by ramping down the trapping potential. The nonzero quasi-condensate number $N_0$ at temperature significantly above $T_c$ in the unitary and the BEC regimes reveals the pseudogap physics. Below $T_c$, a rapid growth of $N_0$ is accompanied by spontaneous generation of tens of vortices. We observe a power law scaling of the vortex density versus the quasi-condensate formation time, consistent with the Kibble-Zurek theory. Our work provides an example of studying emerged many-body physics by quench dynamics and paves the way for studying the quantum turbulence in a strongly interacting Fermi gas.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

Observation of state-to-state hyperfine-changing collision in a Bose-Fermi mixture of $^6$Li and $^{41}$K atoms

Hyperfine-changing collisions are of fundamental interest for the studying of ultracold heteronuclear mixtures. Here, we report the state-to-state study of the hyperfine-changing-collision dynamics in a Bose-Fermi mixture of $^6$Li and $^{41}$K atoms. The collision products are directly observed and the spin-changing dynamics is measured. Based on a two-body collision model, the experimental results are simultaneously fitted from which the spin-changing rate coefficient of $ 1.9(2)\times 10^{-12}~\rm{cm^3\cdot s^{-1}}$ is gained, being consistent with the multi-channel quantum defect theory calculation. We further show that the contact parameter of $^6$Li-$^{41}$K mixture can be extracted from the measured spin-changing dynamics. The obtained results are consistent with the first order perturbation theory in the weakly-interacting limit. Our system offers great promise for studying spin-changing interactions in heteronuclear mixtures.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

Feshbach spectroscopy of an ultracold $^{41}$K-$^6$Li mixture and $^{41}$K atoms

We have observed 69 $^{41}$K-$^6$Li interspecies Feshbach resonances including 13 elastic p-wave resonances and 6 broad d-wave resonances of $^{41}$K atoms in different spin-state combinations at fields up to 600~G. Multi-channel quantum defect theory calculation is performed to assign these resonances and the results show perfect agreement with experimental values after improving input parameters. The observed broad p- and d- wave resonances display a full resolved multiplet structure. They may serve as important simulators to nonzero partial wave dominated physics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

A 30 W, sub-kHz frequency-locked laser at 532 nm

We report on the realization of a high-power, ultranarrow-linewidth, and frequency-locked 532~nm laser system. The laser system consists of single-pass and intra-cavity second harmonic generation of a continuous-wave Ytterbium doped fiber laser at 1064~nm in the nonlinear crystal of periodically poled lithium niobate and lithium triborate, respectively. With 47~W infrared input, 30~W green laser is generated through the type I critical phase matching in the intracavity lithium triborate crystal. The laser linewidth is measured to be on the order of sub-kHz, which is achieved by simultaneously locking the single-pass frequency doubling output onto the iodine absorption line R69 (36-1) at 532~nm. Furthermore, the phase locking between the laser system and another slave 1064~nm laser is demonstrated with relative frequency tunability being up to 10~GHz. Our results completely satisfy the requirements of 532~nm laser for quantum simulation with ultracold atoms.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Oscillatory-like Expansion of a Fermionic Superfluid

We study the expansion behaviours of a Fermionic superfluid in a cigar-shaped optical dipole trap for the whole BEC-BCS crossover and various temperatures. At low temperature ($0.06(1) T_F$), the atom cloud undergoes an anisotropic hydrodynamic expansion over 30~ms, which behaves like oscillation in the horizontal plane. By analyzing the expansion dynamics according to the superfluid hydrodynamic equation, the effective polytropic index $\barγ$ of Equation-of-State of Fermionic superfluid is extracted. The $\barγ$ values show a non-monotonic behavior over the BEC-BCS crossover, and have a good agreement with the theoretical results in the unitarity and BEC side. The normalized quasi-frequencies of the oscillatory expansion are measured, which drop significantly from the BEC side to the BCS side and reach a minimum value of 1.73 around $1/k_Fa=-0.25$. Our work improves the understanding of the dynamic properties of strongly interacting Fermi gas.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Quantum Adiabatic Doping with Incommensurate Optical Lattices

Quantum simulations of Fermi-Hubbard models have been attracting considerable efforts in the optical lattice research, with the ultracold anti-ferromagnetic atomic phase reached at half filling in recent years. An unresolved issue is to dope the system while maintaining the low thermal entropy. Here we propose to achieve the low temperature phase of the doped Fermi-Hubbard model using incommensurate optical lattices through adiabatic quantum evolution. In this theoretical proposal, we find that one major problem about the adiabatic doping that shows up is atomic localization in the incommensurate lattice, potentially causing exponential slowing down of the adiabatic procedure. We study both one- and two-dimensional incommensurate optical lattices, and find that the localization prevents efficient adiabatic doping in the strong lattice regime for both cases. With density matrix renormalization group calculation, we further show that the slowing down problem in one dimension can be circumvented by considering interaction induced many-body delocalization, which is experimentally feasible using Feshbach resonance techniques. This protocol is expected to be efficient as well in two dimensions where the localization phenomenon is less stable.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Strongly Interacting Bose Gases near a $d$-wave Shape Resonance

Many unconventional quantum matters, such as fractional quantum Hall effect and $d$-wave high-Tc superconductor, are discovered in strongly interacting systems. Understanding quantum many-body systems with strong interaction and the unconventional phases therein is one of the most challenging problems in physics nowadays. Cold atom systems possess a natural way to create strong interaction by bringing the system to the vicinity of a scattering resonance. Although this has been a focused topic in cold atom physics for more than a decade, these studies have so far mostly been limited for $s$-wave resonance. Here we report the experimental observation of a broad $d$-wave shape resonance in degenerate ${}^{41}$K gas. We further measure the molecular binding energy that splits into three branches as a hallmark of $d$-wave molecules, and find that the lifetime of this many-body system is reasonably long at strongly interacting regime. From analyzing the breathing mode excited by ramping through this resonance, it suggests that a quite stable low-temperature atom and molecule mixture is produced. Putting all the evidence together, our system offers great promise to reach a $d$-wave molecular superfluid.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Coupled Dipole Oscillations of a Mass-Imbalanced Bose and Fermi Superfluid Mixture

Recent experimental realizations of superfluid mixtures of Bose and Fermi quantum gases provide a unique platform for exploring diverse superfluid phenomena. We study dipole oscillations of a double superfluid in a cigar-shaped optical dipole trap, consisting of $^{41}$K and $^{6}$Li atoms with a large mass imbalance, where the oscillations of the bosonic and fermionic components are coupled via the Bose-Fermi interaction. In our high-precision measurements, the frequencies of both components are observed to be shifted from the single-species ones, and exhibit unusual features. The frequency shifts of the $^{41}$K component are upward (downward) in the radial (axial) direction, whereas the $^{6}$Li component has down-shifted frequencies in both directions. Most strikingly, as the interaction strength is varied, the frequency shifts display a resonant-like behavior in both directions, for both species, and around a similar location at the BCS side of fermionic superfluid. These rich phenomena challenge theoretical understanding of superfluids.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Experimental quantum channel simulation

Quantum simulation is of great importance in quantum information science. Here, we report an experimental quantum channel simulator imbued with an algorithm for imitating the behavior of a general class of quantum systems. The reported quantum channel simulator consists of four single-qubit gates and one controlled-NOT gate. All types of quantum channels can be decomposed by the algorithm and implemented on this device. We deploy our system to simulate various quantum channels, such as quantum-noise channels and weak quantum measurement. Our results advance experimental quantum channel simulation, which is integral to the goal of quantum information processing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

A quantum degenerate Bose-Fermi mixture of $^{41}$K and $^6$Li

We report a new apparatus for the study of two-species quantum degenerate mixture of $^{41}$K and $^6$Li atoms. We develop and combine several advanced cooling techniques to achieve both large atom number and high phase space density of the two-species atom clouds. Furthermore, we build a high-efficiency two-species magnetic transport system to transfer atom clouds from the 3D magneto-optical-trap chamber to a full glass science chamber of extreme high vacuum environment and good optical access. We perform a forced radio-frequency evaporative cooling for $^{41}$K atoms while the $^6$Li atoms are sympathetically cooled in an optically-plugged magnetic trap. Finally, we achieve the simultaneous quantum degeneracy for the $^{41}$K and $^6$Li atoms. The Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{41}$K has 1.4$\times$10$^5$ atoms with a condensate fraction of about 62%, while the degenerate Fermi gas of $^6$Li has a total atom number of 5.4$\times$10$^5$ at 0.25 Fermi temperature.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗