English

Manifestation of a non-abelian gauge field in a p-type semiconductor system

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2016-06-02 v2

Abstract

Gauge theories, while describing fundamental interactions in nature, also emerge in a wide variety of physical systems. Abelian gauge fields have been predicted and observed in a number of novel quantum many-body systems, topological insulators, ultracold atoms and many others. However, the non-abelian gauge field, while playing the most fundamental role in particle physics, up to now has remained a purely theoretical construction in many-body physics. In the present paper we report the first observation of a non-abelian gauge field in a spin-orbit coupled quantum system. The gauge field manifests itself in quantum magnetic oscillations of a hole doped two-dimensional (2D) GaAs heterostructure. Transport measurements were performed in tilted magnetic fields, where the effect of the emergent non-abelian gauge field was controlled by the components of the magnetic field in the 2D plane.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.06149,
  title  = {Manifestation of a non-abelian gauge field in a p-type semiconductor system},
  author = {T. Li and L. A. Yeoh and A. Srinivasan and O. Klochan and D. A. Ritchie and M. Y. Simmons and O. P. Sushkov and A. R Hamilton},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.06149},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

11 pages, 8 figures