# The Aharonov-Bohm effect in mesoscopic Bose-Einstein condensates

## TL;DR

This paper proposes using ultracold atoms in light-shaped potentials to investigate the Aharonov-Bohm effect in mesoscopic Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing interaction-dependent phenomena with potential quantum applications.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel cold atom device setup to study the Aharonov-Bohm effect, highlighting the impact of interactions on the effect in bosonic systems.

## Key findings

- Aharonov-Bohm effect is suppressed for interacting bosons.
- The effect persists for fermions in the same setup.
- Potential applications include quantum simulation and interferometry.

## Abstract

Ultra-cold atoms in light-shaped potentials open up new ways to explore mesoscopic physics: Arbitrary trapping potentials can be engineered with only a change of the laser field. Here, we propose using ultracold atoms in light-shaped potentials to feasibly realize a cold atom device to study one of the fundamental problems of mesoscopic physics, the Aharonov-Bohm effect: The interaction of particles with a magnetic field when traveling in a closed loop. Surprisingly, we find that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is washed out for interacting bosons, while it is present for fermions. We show that our atomic device has possible applications as quantum simulator, Mach-Zehnder interferometer and for tests of quantum foundation.