English

Observation of 2D fermionic Mott insulators of $^{40}$K with single-site resolution

Quantum Gases 2016-06-16 v3 Statistical Mechanics Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

We report on the site-resolved observation of characteristic states of the two-dimensional repulsive Fermi-Hubbard model, using ultracold 40^{40}K atoms in an optical lattice. By varying the tunneling, interaction strength, and external confinement, we realize metallic, Mott-insulating, and band-insulating states. We directly measure the local moment, which quantifies the degree of on-site magnetization, as a function of temperature and chemical potential. Entropies per particle as low as 0.99(6)kB0.99(6)\,k_B indicate that nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic correlations should be detectable using spin-sensitive imaging.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.00096,
  title  = {Observation of 2D fermionic Mott insulators of $^{40}$K with single-site resolution},
  author = {Lawrence W. Cheuk and Matthew A. Nichols and Katherine R. Lawrence and Melih Okan and Hao Zhang and Martin W. Zwierlein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.00096},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

Updated text and citations