Magnetically generated spin-orbit coupling for ultracold atoms with slowly varying periodic driving

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to generate spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atoms using magnetic pulses, effectively eliminating micro-motion effects and enabling precise control of atomic dynamics through tailored magnetic field switching.

Contribution

It introduces a technique to bypass micro-motion in magnetically induced SOC by strategic magnetic field switching, aligning exact dynamics with effective Floquet Hamiltonian predictions.

Findings

Micro-motion can be suppressed with proper magnetic field timing.

Exact dynamics match effective Floquet Hamiltonian when phase is optimized.

The method enhances control over spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atoms.

Abstract

The spin-orbit coupling (SOC) affecting the center of mass of ultracold atoms can be simulated using a properly chosen periodic sequence of magnetic pulses. Yet such a method is generally accompanied by micro-motion which hinders a precise control of atomic dynamics and thus complicating practical applications. Here we show how to by-pass the micro-motion emerging in the magnetically induced SOC by switching on and off properly the oscillating magnetic fields at the initial and final times. We consider the exact dynamics of the system and demonstrate that the overall dynamics can be immune to the micro-motion. The exact dynamics is shown to agree well with the evolution of the system described by slowly changing effective Floquet Hamiltonian including the SOC term. The agreement is shown to be the best when the phase of the periodic driving takes a specific value for which the effect of the spin-orbit coupling is maximum.