Observation of parity-time symmetry breaking transitions in a dissipative Floquet system of ultracold atoms

Jiaming Li, Andrew K. Harter, Ji Liu, Leonardo de Melo, Yogesh N. Joglekar () and Le Luo ()
Additional contact information
Jiaming Li: Sun Yat-sen University
Andrew K. Harter: Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Ji Liu: Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Leonardo de Melo: Sun Yat-sen University
Yogesh N. Joglekar: Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Le Luo: Sun Yat-sen University

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Open physical systems with balanced loss and gain, described by non-Hermitian parity-time $$\left( {{\cal P}{\cal T}} \right)$$ P T reflection symmetric Hamiltonians, exhibit a transition which could engender modes that exponentially decay or grow with time, and thus spontaneously breaks the $${\cal P}{\cal T}$$ P T -symmetry. Such $${\cal P}{\cal T}$$ P T -symmetry-breaking transitions have attracted many interests because of their extraordinary behaviors and functionalities absent in closed systems. Here we report on the observation of $${\cal P}{\cal T}$$ P T -symmetry-breaking transitions by engineering time-periodic dissipation and coupling, which are realized through state-dependent atom loss in an optical dipole trap of ultracold 6Li atoms. Comparing with a single transition appearing for static dissipation, the time-periodic counterpart undergoes $${\cal P}{\cal T}$$ P T -symmetry breaking and restoring transitions at vanishingly small dissipation strength in both single and multiphoton transition domains, revealing rich phase structures associated to a Floquet open system. The results enable ultracold atoms to be a versatile tool for studying $${\cal P}{\cal T}$$ P T -symmetric quantum systems.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08596-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-08596-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08596-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().