Pattern formation in mixtures of ultracold atoms in optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper proposes experiments with ultracold atoms in optical lattices to observe various pattern formations, including quantum emulsions and ordered structures, providing insights into phase separation and potential thermometry applications.

Contribution

It introduces experimental setups to observe pattern formation in ultracold atom mixtures and offers a theoretical framework to understand these phenomena at zero temperature.

Findings

Observation of quantum emulsion patterns in light-heavy atom mixtures

Emergence of complex ordered patterns when mixtures do not phase separate

Potential use of patterns for low-temperature thermometry

Abstract

Regular pattern formation is ubiquitous in nature; it occurs in biological, physical, and materials science systems. Here we propose a set of experiments with ultracold atoms that show how to examine different types of pattern formation. In particular, we show how one can see the analog of labyrinthine patterns (so-called quantum emulsions) in mixtures of light and heavy atoms (that tend to phase separate) by tuning the trap potential and we show how complex geometrically ordered patterns emerge (when the mixtures do not phase separate), which could be employed for low-temperature thermometry. The complex physical mechanisms for the pattern formation at zero temperature are understood within a theoretical analysis called the local density approximation.