2007/11/23 by R. O. Umucalilar, R. O. Umucalılar, Hui Zhai +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.070402
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 070402 (2008) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2007/11/23 · openalex publication_date 2008/02/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We consider a gas of noninteracting spinless fermions in a rotating optical lattice and calculate the density profile of the gas in an external confinement potential. The density profile exhibits distinct plateaus, which correspond to gaps in the single particle spectrum known as the Hofstadter butterfly. The plateaus result from insulating behavior whenever the Fermi energy lies within a gap. We discuss the necessary conditions to realize the Hofstadter insulator in a cold atom setup and show how the quantized Hall conductance can be measured from density profiles using the Streda formula.