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Effective p-wave interaction and topological superfluids in s-wave quantum gases

Bin Wang, Zhen Zheng, Han Pu, Xubo Zou, and Guangcan Guo
Phys. Rev. A 93, 031602(R) – Published 29 March 2016

Abstract

p-wave interaction in cold atoms may give rise to exotic topological superfluids. However, the realization of p-wave interaction in a cold atom system is experimentally challenging. Here we propose a simple scheme to synthesize effective p-wave interaction in conventional s-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 p-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 p-wave interaction in s-wave quantum gases, and may provide a completely new route for realizing p-wave topological superfluids.

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  • Received 14 January 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.031602

©2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Bin Wang1, Zhen Zheng1, Han Pu2,3,*, Xubo Zou1,†, and Guangcan Guo1

  • 1Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, and Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy and Rice Center for Quantum Materials, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77251-1892, USA
  • 3Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China

  • *hpu@rice.edu
  • xbz@ustc.edu.cn

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Issue

Vol. 93, Iss. 3 — March 2016

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