Accessing the topological Mott insulator in cold atom quantum simulators with realistic Rydberg dressing

TL;DR

This paper explores how cold Rydberg-dressed atoms in optical lattices can simulate topological Mott insulators, analyzing phase diagrams, stability, and experimental feasibility to enable observation of exotic topological phases.

Contribution

It provides a realistic protocol for simulating topological Mott insulators with Rydberg-dressed cold atoms, including phase analysis and experimental parameter identification.

Findings

Identification of topological phases in Rydberg-dressed atom systems

Analysis of phase stability at finite temperature and quantum fluctuations

Proposal of experimental regimes for observing topological properties

Abstract

The interplay between many-body interactions and the kinetic energy gives rise to rich phase diagrams hosting, among others, interaction-induced topological phases. These phases are characterized by both a local order parameter and a global topological invariant, and can exhibit exotic ground states such as self-trapped polarons and interaction-induced edge states. In this work, we investigate a realistic scenario for the quantum simulation of such systems using cold Rydberg-dressed atoms in optical lattices. We consider spinless fermions on a checkerboard lattice, interacting via the tunable-range effective potential induced by the Rydberg dressing. We perform a detailed analysis of the phase diagram at half- and incommensurate fillings, in the mean-field approximation. We furthermore study the stability of the phases with respect to temperature within the mean-field approximation and with respect to quantum fluctuations using the density matrix renormalization group method. Finally, we propose an implementation protocol, and in particular identify attainable regimes of experimental parameters in which the topological properties of the model become accessible. Our work, thereby, opens a realistic pathway to the outstanding experimental observation of this predicted phase in state-of-the-art cold atom quantum simulators.