Artificial gauge potentials for neutral atoms

TL;DR

This paper reviews how neutral atoms can be engineered with laser fields to simulate magnetic and gauge fields, enabling studies of quantum phenomena like vortex formation and spin-orbit coupling in cold gases.

Contribution

It explains the physical principles of artificial gauge potentials, relates them to Berry's phase, and discusses their applications in simulating magnetic effects and non-Abelian gauge fields in cold atom systems.

Findings

Artificial gauge potentials induce Lorentz-like forces in neutral atoms.

Vortex nucleation demonstrates artificial magnetism in cold gases.

Simulation of non-Abelian gauge fields leads to effective spin-orbit coupling.

Abstract

When a neutral atom moves in a properly designed laser field, its center-of-mass motion may mimic the dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field, with the emergence of a Lorentz-like force. In this Colloquium we present the physical principles at the basis of this artificial (synthetic) magnetism and relate the corresponding Aharonov-Bohm phase to the Berry's phase that emerges when the atom follows adiabatically one of its dressed states. We also discuss some manifestations of artificial magnetism for a cold quantum gas, in particular in terms of vortex nucleation. We then generalise our analysis to the simulation of non-Abelian gauge potentials and present some striking consequences, such as the emergence of an effective spin-orbit coupling. We address both the case of bulk gases and discrete systems, where atoms are trapped in an optical lattice.