Matter waves in atomic artificial graphene

Nicola Bartolo (1) , Mauro Antezza (1)

1 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb

We present a new model to realize artificial 2D lattices with cold atoms investigating the atomic artificial graphene: a 2D confined matter wave is scattered by atoms of a second species trapped around the nodes of a honeycomb optical lattice. The system allows an exact determination of the Green function, hence of the transport properties. The inter-species interaction can be tuned via the interplay between scattering length and confinements. Band structure and density of states of a periodic lattice are derived for different values of the interaction strength. Emergence and features of Dirac cones are pointed out, together with the appearance of multiple gaps and a non-dispersive and isolated flat band. Robustness against finite-size and vacancies effects is numerically investigated.

Domaines: Gaz Quantiques [cond-mat.quant-gas]; Mécanique statistique [cond-mat.stat-mech]; Systèmes désordonnés et réseaux de neurones [cond-mat.dis-nn]

Nicola Bartolo, Mauro Antezza. Matter waves in atomic artificial graphene. EPL - Europhysics Letters, 2014, 107 (3), pp.30006. ⟨10.1209/0295-5075/107/30006⟩. ⟨hal-01054237⟩