2009/03/31 by N. Goldman, A. Kubasiak, A. Bermudez +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.103.035301
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 035301 (2009) · 4 pages, 3 figures + additional references
arxiv created 2009/07/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
We study the properties of an ultracold Fermi gas loaded in an optical square lattice and subjected to an external and classical non-Abelian gauge field. We show that this system can be exploited as an optical analogue of relativistic quantum electrodynamics, offering a remarkable route to access the exotic properties of massless Dirac fermions with cold atoms experiments. In particular we show that the underlying Minkowski space-time can also be modified, reaching anisotropic regimes where a remarkable anomalous quantum Hall effect and a squeezed Landau vacuum could be observed.