Optical Lattice Hamiltonians for Relativistic Quantum Electrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper proposes using interpenetrating optical lattices with Bose-Fermi mixtures to simulate quantum electrodynamics in various dimensions, enabling experimental exploration of complex QED phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces models of neutral atoms on optical lattices that replicate the low-energy physics of QED, including chiral symmetry breaking and Chern-Simons effects.

Findings

Models successfully emulate 1+1, 2+1, and 3+1 dimensional QED.

Potential to observe chiral symmetry breaking experimentally.

Framework for simulating relativistic quantum phenomena with cold atoms.

Abstract

We show how interpenetrating optical lattices containing Bose-Fermi mixtures can be constructed to emulate the thermodynamics of quantum electrodynamics (QED). We present models of neutral atoms on lattices in 1+1, 2+1 and 3+1 dimensions whose low energy effective action reduces to that of photons coupled to Dirac fermions of the corresponding dimensionality. We give special attention to 2+1 dimensional electrodynamics (QED3) and discuss how two of its most interesting features, chiral symmetry breaking and Chern-Simons physics, could be observed experimentally.