Description du projet
Explorer les interactions interparticulaires dans les gaz ultrafroids
Les atomes ultrafroids d’un réseau optique offrent une approche unique pour étudier les systèmes quantiques à plusieurs corps, qui ne pouvaient auparavant être étudiés qu’à l’aide de systèmes expérimentaux de matière condensée. Cette nouvelle approche, appelée «simulation quantique», offre la possibilité de générer des matériaux avec des états exotiques. Jusqu’à présent, les simulations quantiques ont négligé les interactions dans les gaz ultrafroids, associant chaque quantité observée à des états monoparticulaires. Le projet LATIS, financé par l’UE, entend produire des états topologiques fortement corrélés dans des gaz ultrafroids en manipulant un petit ensemble d’atomes dans le réseau optique. S’appuyant sur les dernières avancées en matière d’ingénierie des structures de bandes topologiques dans les réseaux optiques, LATIS étudiera la physique des interactions interparticulaires dans les gaz ultrafroids avec une précision sans précédent.
Objectif
The LATIS project builds on the latest advances in addressing individual atoms and engineering topological band structures in optical lattices, in view of exploring the rich physics of interacting topological matter with unprecedented control. Ultracold topological matter has recently emerged as a central theme in the realm of quantum gases. By manipulating ultracold atoms in optical lattices, various experimental groups have realized a variety of topological band structures and detected their characteristic features. Creating topological matter with ultracold atoms offers a novel view on intriguing phenomena initially discovered in the solid state but also allows for the realization of exotic states that are inaccessible in real materials. This quantum-simulation approach to topological matter generates a constructive synergy between theoretical developments driven by curiosity and concrete technological applications. Until now, ultracold topological matter has been explored in the non-interacting regime of quantum gases, so that the observed quantities are associated with single-particle states. However, exciting avenues would become accessible upon combining engineered band structures with tunable interactions. This scenario would provide a concrete path towards the experimental realization of strongly-correlated topological states in ultracold gases. A promising path to create and address such states consists in manipulating a very small ensemble of atoms within a few lattice sites of an optical lattice, as now made possible by quantum gas microscopes. This setting would allow for unprecedented control over strongly-correlated topological matter, hence offering a unique framework for many-body quantum physics. The results emanating from the LATIS project will have a substantial impact on a wide scientific community working on quantum geometry and topological states of matter, with direct consequences for ongoing experiments on synthetic topological systems.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Institution d’accueil
1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgique