English

Spiral spin textures of bosonic Mott insulator with SU(3) spin-orbit coupling

Quantum Gases 2014-11-19 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We study the Mott phase of three-component bosons, with one particle per site, in an optical lattice by mapping it onto an SU(3) spin model. In the simplest case of full SU(3) symmetry, one obtains a ferromagnetic Heisenberg model. Introducing an SU(3) analog of spin-orbit coupling, additional spin-spin interactions are generated. We first consider the scenario of spin-dependent hopping phases, leading to Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-type interactions. They result in the formation of spiral spin textures, which in one dimension can be understood by a local unitary transformation. Applying classical Monte Carlo simulations, we extend our study to two-dimensional systems, and systems with "true" spin-orbit coupling, involving spin-changing hoppings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1408.0769,
  title  = {Spiral spin textures of bosonic Mott insulator with SU(3) spin-orbit coupling},
  author = {Tobias Graß and Ravindra W. Chhajlany and Christine A. Muschik and Maciej Lewenstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.0769},
  year   = {2014}
}