Dipolar effect in coherent spin mixing of two atoms in a single optical lattice site

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that atomic dipolar interactions, though weak, can significantly influence the coherent spin dynamics of two atoms in a single optical lattice site, making them experimentally observable.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical estimation of dipolar effects in two-atom spin dynamics within optical lattices using a variational approach.

Findings

Dipolar effects are detectable in two-atom spin dynamics.

Weak dipole-dipole interactions influence spin mixing.

Experimental observability of dipolar effects is confirmed.

Abstract

We show that atomic dipolar effects are detectable in the system that recently demonstrated two-atom coherent spin dynamics within individual lattice sites of a Mott state. Based on a two-state approximation for the two-atom internal states and relying on a variational approach, we have estimated the spin dipolar effect. Despite the absolute weakness of the dipole-dipole interaction, it is shown that it leads to experimentally observable effects in the spin mixing dynamics.