Mesoscopic Vortex-Meissner currents in ring ladders

TL;DR

This paper investigates how mesoscopic effects influence vortex and Meissner currents in ring ladder systems of ultracold atoms, revealing reentrant phase behavior and proposing experimental diagnostics via time of flight measurements.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of finite size on vortex-Meissner currents in ring ladders and demonstrates control over phase transitions and current configurations.

Findings

Mesoscopic scale modifies vortex and Meissner currents.

Reentrant behavior of phases observed with lattice configuration control.

Time of flight measurements can diagnose current configurations.

Abstract

Recent experimental progress have revealed Meissner and Vortex phases in low-dimensional ultracold atoms systems. Atomtronic setups can realize ring ladders, while explicitly taking the finite size of the system into account. This enables the engineering of quantized chiral currents and phase slips in-between them. We find that the mesoscopic scale modifies the current. Full control of the lattice configuration reveals a reentrant behavior of Vortex and Meissner phases. Our approach allows a feasible diagnostic of the currents' configuration through time of flight measurements.