Realizing Exactly Solvable SU(N) Magnets with Thermal Atoms

Published

May 6, 2016

Author(s)

Michael Beverland, Gorjan Alagic, Michael Martin, Andrew Koller, Ana Maria Rey, Alexey Gorshkov

Abstract

We show that n thermal fermionic alkaline-earth atoms in a flat-bottom trap allow one to robustly implement a spin model displaying two symmetries: the Sn symmetry that swaps atoms occupying different vibrational levels of the trap and the SU(N) symmetry associated with N nuclear spin states. The high symmetry makes the model exactly solvable, which, in turn, enables the analytic study of dynamical processes, such as spin diffusion, in this SU(N) system. We also show how to use this system to generate entangled states that allow for Heisenberg-limited metrology. This highly symmetric spin model should be experimentally realizable even when the vibrational levels are occupied according to a high-temperature thermal or an arbitrary non-thermal distribution.

Citation

Physical Review A

Volume

93

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.051601

Local Download

Keywords

magnets, ultracold atoms, quantum simulation

Citation

Beverland, M. , Alagic, G. , Martin, M. , Koller, A. , Rey, A. and Gorshkov, A. (2016), Realizing Exactly Solvable SU(N) Magnets with Thermal Atoms, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.051601, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=917095 (Accessed October 10, 2025)