Abstract
-wave interaction in cold atoms may give rise to exotic topological superfluids. However, the realization of -wave interaction in a cold atom system is experimentally challenging. Here we propose a simple scheme to synthesize effective -wave interaction in conventional -wave interacting quantum gases. The key idea is to load atoms into a spin-dependent optical lattice potential. Using two concrete examples involving spin-1/2 fermions, we show how the original system can be mapped into a model describing spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor -wave interaction, whose ground state can be a topological superfluid that supports Majorana fermions under proper conditions. Our proposal has the advantage that it does not require spin-orbit coupling or loading atoms onto higher orbitals, which is the key in earlier proposals to synthesize effective -wave interaction in -wave quantum gases, and may provide a completely new route for realizing -wave topological superfluids.
- Received 14 January 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.031602
©2016 American Physical Society