Realizing Integer and Fractional Quantum Hall states with a few rapidly rotating Fermions

Session Information

Location: amf. P7 | "Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of Iași (TUIAȘI)
Day: 2. Tuesday 16
Time: 10:30-11:30
Chairperson: Teodora Kirova

Presentation Details

Presentation Type: Oral presentation
Title: Realizing Integer and Fractional Quantum Hall states with a few rapidly rotating Fermions
Abstract: The fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effect exhibits remarkable states that due to strong correlations and topological nature host exotic properties such as fractionally charged quasi-particles and anyonic exchange statistics. Realizing these states in scalable engineered systems holds great potential for deepening our understanding of their microscopic origins, yet it remains a challenge. One fundamental class of FQH states is represented by the celebrated Laughlin wavefunction, which describes a strongly correlated state in which the interaction energy is minimized by incorporating the relative angular momentum between all constituents.

Here we present the direct realisation of the two-particle Laughlin wavefunction by rapid rotation of two interacting spinful fermions in a tight optical tweezer [1]. We owe this result to our newly established experimental tools allowing us to precisely shape and modulate our optical potentials using coherently interfering laser fields [2]. Using a single atom and spin resolved imaging technique we sample the Laughlin wavefunction and reveal its distinctive features: a ground state distribution in the center-of-mass motion, a vortex distribution in the relative motion, correlations in the relative angle of the two particles, and the suppression of inter-particle interactions.

Building on this technique, we show recent results on larger systems: we realize a two-component integer quantum Hall (IQH) state comprising 3+3 spinful fermions and observe a hallmark feature of IQH states – a uniform flattening of the density distribution. Together with the tunability of interactions, this brings within experimental reach the atom-by-atom assembly of larger FQH states and the observation of a precursor of a quantum phase transition between IQH states of weakly interacting fermions and FQH states of interacting bosonic molecules.

[1] P. Lunt, P. Hill, J. Reiter, P. M. Preiss, M. Gałka, and S. Jochim, Realization of a Laughlin State of Two Rapidly Rotating Fermions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 253401 (2024)
[2] P. Lunt, P. Hill, J. Reiter, P. M. Preiss, M. Gałka, and S. Jochim, Engineering single-atom angular momentum eigenstates in an optical tweezer, Phys. Rev. A 110, 063315 (2024)

Presenter

Dr Maciej Galka
Heidelberg University | Germany

Authors

1. Galka, Maciej | Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 226, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
2. Hill, Paul | Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 226, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
3. Reiter, Johannes | Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 226, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
4. Lunt, Philipp | Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 226, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
5. Preiss, Philipp | Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
6. Jochim, Selim | Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 226, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany