Simulating Wess-Zumino Supersymmetry Model in Optical Lattices

TL;DR

This paper proposes simulating the Wess-Zumino supersymmetry model using cold atom-molecule mixtures in optical lattices, demonstrating unbroken SUSY at zero temperature and signatures of SUSY breaking at finite temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to simulate and study supersymmetry using cold atoms, providing experimental signatures for SUSY and its breaking.

Findings

SUSY can be simulated in optical lattices with cold atoms and molecules.

At zero temperature, SUSY remains unbroken with identical dispersions.

Finite temperature induces SUSY breaking and phonino excitations.

Abstract

We study a cold atom-molecule mixture in two-dimensional optical lattices, in which fermionic atoms have a Dirac-type dispersion. We show that by fine-tuning the atomic and molecular interactions, such mixtures can simulate Wess-Zumino supersymmetry (SUSY) model, the first example of SUSY theories. At zero temperature, SUSY is not spontaneously broken for this simplest SUSY model, which implies identical relativistic dispersions of the atom and its superpartner, bosonic diatom molecule. This defining signature of SUSY can be probed by single particle spectroscopies. Thermal breaking of SUSY at finite temperature is accompanied by a thermal Goldstone fermion, i.e., phonino excitation. This and other signatures of broken SUSY can also be probed experimentally.