Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Spin Chain of a Few Cold Atoms in a One-Dimensional Trap

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the deterministic creation and characterization of small antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin chains using cold fermionic atoms in a one-dimensional trap, without external periodic potentials.

Contribution

It introduces a method to prepare and analyze antiferromagnetic spin chains of up to four atoms in a 1D trap, advancing quantum simulation of magnetic systems.

Findings

Successful preparation of spin chains with up to four atoms

Agreement with spin-chain models and numerical simulations

Characterization of spin configurations via measurement techniques

Abstract

We report on the deterministic preparation of antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin chains consisting of up to four fermionic atoms in a one-dimensional trap. These chains are stabilized by strong repulsive interactions between the two spin components without the need for an external periodic potential. We independently characterize the spin configuration of the chains by measuring the spin orientation of the outermost particle in the trap and by projecting the spatial wave function of one spin component on single-particle trap levels. Our results are in good agreement with a spin-chain model for fermionized particles and with numerically exact diagonalizations of the full few-fermion system.