Topological Quantum Gas Microsope

ended

In this project I will study the properties of interacting topological insulators using ultracold atoms in optical lattices. To this aim, I will build the first bosonic quantum gas microscope that allows single site resolution in combination with excellent control of atomic interactions. This project will be able to detect and manipulate in-situ a wide number of topological Hamiltonians from the weakly to the strongly interacting regime. The first part of the project involves a construction stage. After characterization of the experimental setup, in a first series of experiments I will study the interacting 2D Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model where higher-order symmetry-protected topological phases are expected. In this model, the control of interactions is crucial to observe interaction-induced topological phase transitions. In a second series of experiments, I will implement a new technique based on Raman-induced tunneling in state dependent potentials to create artificial gauge fields. This scheme will provide full control of the hopping matrix elements and will avoid the typical heating associated to driven-many-body systems in cold atoms experiments. The spatial resolution provided by the quantum gas microscope, the acquired knowledge provided by the interacting SSH model and the implementation of this new driving-scheme will open the possibility to study and prepare adiabatically for the first time a strongly-correlated topological phase.