Project description
Exploring the fundamentals of the Kondo effect in atomic many-body systems
Interactions between localised spins and mobile fermions underlie the transport properties of many strongly correlated materials. Even a single localised spin impurity can dramatically affect the motion of a great number of fermions in its vicinity, giving rise to a remarkable phenomenon in quantum many-body physics – the Kondo effect. For a finite density of localised spins, the Kondo effect further competes with fermion-mediated long-range spin interactions. The EU-funded OrbiDynaMIQs project will probe the elementary dynamical and spatial properties of the Kondo effect. It will develop a novel, rapid quantum simulator based on ultracold fermionic ytterbium atoms, and will focus on the spin-orbital dynamics of single and multiple impurities embedded in 1D and 2D itinerant fermion systems.
Objective
The interaction between localized spins and mobile fermions underlies the transport properties of a large variety of highly correlated materials. Even a single localized spin impurity can dramatically influence the motion of many fermions in its surroundings, giving rise to one of the most remarkable phenomena in quantum many-body physics - the Kondo effect. For a finite density of localized spins, the Kondo effect competes with non-local fermion-mediated Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interactions, providing the driving force for many intriguing phenomena such as the unconventional superconductivity and the quantum critical behavior of heavy-fermion compounds. Despite decades of investigations, fundamental issues remain concerning the dynamical and spatial properties of the Kondo effect, that are difficult to tackle in electron systems. Further, a detailed understanding of the transition between the single-impurity Kondo problem and a system of interacting impurities is still missing. In OrbiDynaMIQs, I will develop a novel experimental platform for addressing such open questions. Leveraging on recent progress in manipulating single atoms with optical tweezers, I will realize a versatile two-orbital quantum simulator based on ultracold fermionic ytterbium atoms. I will focus on the spin-orbital dynamics of single and multiple localized impurities embedded in one- and two-dimensional itinerant fermion systems. I will then investigate the emergence of RKKY interactions between localized spins, both in few-body and full lattice realizations, taking first steps in exploring a whole new range of spin-correlation phenomena in Kondo systems. The proposed approach capitalizes on the strong interlink between quantum many-body physics and precision measurements with two-electron atoms, and on my experience at the confluence of these fields. It will also facilitate studies of new two-orbital models with enlarged SU(N) symmetries beyond that of spin-1/2 electron systems.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsfermions
- natural sciencesphysical scienceselectromagnetism and electronicssuperconductivity
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
34127 Trieste
Italy