Skyrmion Ground States of Rapidly Rotating Few-Fermion Systems

Abstract:

We show that ultracold fermions in an artificial magnetic field open up a new window to the physics of the spinful fractional quantum Hall effect. We numerically study the lowest energy states of strongly interacting few-fermion systems in rapidly rotating optical microtraps. We find that skyrmion-like ground states with locally ferromagnetic, long-range spin textures emerge. To realize such states experimentally, rotating microtraps with higher-order angular momentum components may be used to prepare fermionic particles in a lowest Landau level. We find parameter regimes in which skyrmion-like ground states should be accessible in current experiments and demonstrate an adiabatic pathway for their preparation in a rapidly rotating harmonic trap. The addition of long range interactions will lead to an even richer interplay between spin textures and fractional quantum Hall physics.

L. Palm, F. Grusdt, and P. M. Preiss, “Skyrmion Ground States of Rapidly Rotating Few-Fermion Systems”, New J. Phys. 22, 083037 (2020).

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba30e

Related to Project: C01, C02