Gauge-Away Effect in Cold Gases on Optical Lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how modifying laser geometry in cold gases on optical lattices can effectively eliminate the gauge field, observable through shifts in the Mott-Insulator to Superfluid transition point.

Contribution

It introduces a method to engineer gauge potentials in cold gases, enabling the transformation of the effective electromagnetic field into a pure gauge, which can be experimentally observed.

Findings

Gauge-away effect can be achieved by geometry modification.

Critical point shifts indicate the gauge transformation.

Mechanism involves transferring gauge potential components.

Abstract

It is shown that a simple modification of the geometry in which Raman lasers are applied to a cold gas in an optical lattice results in transforming the emerging effective electromagnetic field into a pure gauge. This contrived gauge-away effect can be observed experimentally by measuring the Mott-Insulator to Superfluid critical point. The underlying mechanism for this phenomenon is the ability to engineer the transfer of the transverse component of the gauge potential into its longitudinal one.