corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 88 » Issue 18
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 180401 (2002) [4 pages]

Particle Number Fractionalization of an Atomic Fermi-Dirac Gas in an Optical Lattice

Download: PDF (92 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Janne Ruostekoski1, Gerald V. Dunne2, and Juha Javanainen2
1Department of Physical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB, United Kingdom
2Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269

Received 11 January 2002; published 17 April 2002

See accompanying Physics Focus

We show that a dilute two-species gas of Fermi-Dirac alkali-metal atoms in a periodic optical lattice may exhibit fractionalization of the particle number when the two components are coupled via a coherent electromagnetic field with a topologically nontrivial phase profile. This results in fractional eigenvalues of the spin operator with vanishing fluctuations. The fractional part can be accurately controlled by modifying the effective detuning of the electromagnetic field.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.180401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.180401
PACS:
03.75.Fi, 05.30.Jp, 11.27.+d
 
< Previous Article | Next Article >