Interaction effects on the PT-symmetry-breaking transition in atomic gases

Ziheng Zhou and Zhenhua Yu
Phys. Rev. A 99, 043412 – Published 10 April 2019

Abstract

Non-Hermitian systems having parity-time (PT) symmetry can undergo a transition, spontaneously breaking the symmetry. Ultracold atomic gases provide an ideal platform to study interaction effects on the transition. We consider a model system of N bosons of two components confined in a tight trap. Radio-frequency and laser fields are coupled to the bosons such that the single-particle Non-Hermitian Hamiltonian hPT=iΓσz+Jσx, which has PT symmetry, can be simulated in a passive way, namely, in the physical system there is only incurred atom loss but no gain. We show that when interatomic interactions are tuned to maintain the symmetry, the PT-symmetry-breaking transition is affected only by the SU(2) variant part of the interatomic interactions. We find that the transition point Γtr decreases as the strength of this interaction part or N increases; in the strong strength limit for this interaction part, Γtr scales as the strength to the power of (N1). We also give signatures of the PT-symmetric and the symmetry-breaking phases for the interacting bosons in experiment.

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  • Received 7 January 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.99.043412

©2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

General Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Ziheng Zhou1 and Zhenhua Yu1,2,*

  • 1Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Metrology, School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519082, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Sun Yat-Sen University (Guangzhou Campus), Guangzhou 510275, China

  • *huazhenyu2000@gmail.com

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Issue

Vol. 99, Iss. 4 — April 2019

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