Dynamics of rotated spin states and magnetic ordering with two-component bosonic atoms in optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-equilibrium dynamics of spin-1/2 and spin-1 bosonic atoms in optical lattices, revealing that rotated initial states can effectively emulate ground state behavior in observable spin currents.

Contribution

It introduces a method to study spin dynamics from simple initial states using matrix product states, providing insights into observable properties of quantum spin models in optical lattices.

Findings

Spin correlations decay over distance and time

Rotated states mimic ground states for spin currents

Dynamics accessible with current experimental techniques

Abstract

The microscopic control available over cold atoms in optical lattices has opened new opportunities to study the properties of quantum spin models. While a lot of attention is focussed on experimentally realizing ground or thermal states via adiabatic loading, it would often be more straightforward to prepare specific simple product states and to probe the properties of interacting spins by observing their dynamics. We explore this possibility for spin-1/2 and spin-1 models that can be realized with bosons in optical lattices, and which exhibit \textit{XY}-ferromagnetic (or counterflow spin superfluid) phases. We consider the dynamics of initial spin-rotated states corresponding to a mean-field version of the phases of interest. Using matrix product state methods in one dimension, we compute both non-equilibrium dynamics and ground/thermal states for these systems. We compare and contrast their behaviour in terms of correlation functions and induced spin currents, which should be directly observable with current experimental techniques. We find that although spin correlations decay substantially at large distances and on long timescales, for induction of spin currents, the rotated states behave similarly to the ground states on experimentally observable timescales.