Imaging of quantum Hall states in ultracold atomic gases

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how off-resonant light scattering can be used to image and distinguish quantum Hall states in ultracold atomic gases, revealing their spin correlations and quasihole properties.

Contribution

It introduces a method to visualize quantum Hall states via far-field imaging linked to two-particle spin correlations.

Findings

Images reflect two-particle spin correlations.

Quasiholes cause density reductions in images.

Method distinguishes different quantum Hall states.

Abstract

We examine off-resonant light scattering from ultracold atoms in the quantum Hall regime. When the light scattering is spin dependent, we show that images formed in the far field can be used to distinguish states of the system. The spatial dependence of the far-field images is determined by the two-particle spin-correlation functions, which the images are related to by a transformation. Quasiholes in the system appear in images of the density formed by collecting the scattered light with a microscope, where the quasihole statistics are revealed by the reduction in density at the quasihole position.