Ionic polaron in a Bose-Einstein condensate

authored by: Grigory E. Astrakharchik, Luis A.Peña Ardila, Richard Schmidt, Krzysztof Jachymski, Antonio Negretti
Abstract: The presence of strong interactions in a many-body quantum system can lead to a variety of exotic effects. Here we show that even in a comparatively simple setup consisting of a charged impurity in a weakly interacting bosonic medium the competition of length scales gives rise to a highly correlated mesoscopic state. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we unravel its vastly different polaronic properties compared to neutral quantum impurities. Moreover, we identify a transition between the regime amenable to conventional perturbative treatment in the limit of weak atom-ion interactions and a many-body bound state with vanishing quasi-particle residue composed of hundreds of atoms. In order to analyze the structure of the corresponding states, we examine the atom-ion and atom-atom correlation functions which both show nontrivial properties. Our findings are directly relevant to experiments using hybrid atom-ion setups that have recently attained the ultracold regime.
Organisation(s): Institute of Theoretical Physics
QuantumFrontiers
External Organisation(s): Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ)
Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)
Forschungszentrum Jülich
University of Warsaw
Universität Hamburg
Type: Article
Journal: Communications Physics
Volume: 4
Publication date: 11.05.2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Physics and Astronomy(all)
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-021-00597-1 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{8583642fe8f04fb588f6a5c86ec01542,
title = "Ionic polaron in a Bose-Einstein condensate",
abstract = "The presence of strong interactions in a many-body quantum system can lead to a variety of exotic effects. Here we show that even in a comparatively simple setup consisting of a charged impurity in a weakly interacting bosonic medium the competition of length scales gives rise to a highly correlated mesoscopic state. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we unravel its vastly different polaronic properties compared to neutral quantum impurities. Moreover, we identify a transition between the regime amenable to conventional perturbative treatment in the limit of weak atom-ion interactions and a many-body bound state with vanishing quasi-particle residue composed of hundreds of atoms. In order to analyze the structure of the corresponding states, we examine the atom-ion and atom-atom correlation functions which both show nontrivial properties. Our findings are directly relevant to experiments using hybrid atom-ion setups that have recently attained the ultracold regime.",
author = "Astrakharchik, {Grigory E.} and Ardila, {Luis A.Pe{\~n}a} and Richard Schmidt and Krzysztof Jachymski and Antonio Negretti",
note = "Funding Information: This work is supported by the Cluster of Excellence {\textquoteleft}CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter{\textquoteright} of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)—EXC 2056—project ID 390715994, the DFG Excellence Cluster QuantumFrontiers, the DFG project NE 1711/3-1, the DFG project SPP 1929 (GiRyd), the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) via the Polish Returns 2019 program, and the Spanish MINECO (FIS2017-84114-C2-1-P). The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (The Spanish National Supercomputing Center—Centro Nacional de Supercomputaci{\'o}n) is acknowledged for the provided computational facilities (RES-FI-2019-3-0018). R.S. is supported by the DFG under Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Strategy—EXC-2111—project ID 390814868. G.E.A. acknowledges financial support from Secretaria d{\textquoteright}Universitats i Recerca del Departament d{\textquoteright}Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya, co-funded by the European Union Regional Development Fund within the ERDF Operational Program of Catalunya (project QuantumCat, ref. 001-P-001644).",
year = "2021",
month = may,
day = "11",
doi = "10.1038/s42005-021-00597-1",
language = "English",
volume = "4",
journal = "Communications Physics",
publisher = "Springer Nature",
number = "1",
}