How to directly observe Landau levels in driven-dissipative strained honeycomb lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how Landau levels can be directly observed in driven-dissipative honeycomb lattices with engineered hopping modulations, using spectral and spatial measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a method to observe relativistic Landau levels in driven-dissipative systems through spectral peaks and spatial intensity patterns, with realistic experimental predictions.

Findings

Landau levels appear as peaks in absorption spectra

Spatial intensity distributions reveal Landau level structure

Quantitative predictions for photonic and microwave lattices

Abstract

We study the driven-dissipative steady-state of a coherently-driven Bose field in a honeycomb lattice geometry. In the presence of a suitable spatial modulation of the hopping amplitudes, a valley-dependent artificial magnetic field appears and the low-energy eigenmodes have the form of relativistic Landau levels. We show how the main properties of the Landau levels can be extracted by observing the peaks in the absorption spectrum of the system and the corresponding spatial intensity distribution. Finally, quantitative predictions for realistic lattices based on photonic or microwave technologies are discussed.