Research highlight: Tunable Gauge Potential in Optical Lattices
29 May 2012
This weeks issue of Physical Review Letters features our article "Tunable gauge potential for neutral and spinless particles in driven lattices". The researchers around J. Struck et al. (SFB 925, Project C1) have been able to create an artificial vector potential in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Such artificial gauge potentials present the basis for emulating the behaviour of charged particles in ultra-strong electric or magnetic fields and thus simulate the behaviour of solid state materials. Due to the high relevance of the work for many field in physics, the article has ben selected as a editor's suggestion by PRL and is highlighted in a Viewpoint in Physics.
The work has been performed within the project C1 of the DFG funded SFB 925 and builds upon previous studies performed within the DFG research unit „Strong Correlations in multiflavor ultracold quantum gases“ and the graduate school „Physics with new advanced coherent radiation sources“. In addition, the work has been supported by Hamburg's Excellence initiative which is supported by the Joachim Herz Stiftung.