Non-Abelian gauge potentials for ultracold atoms with degenerate dark states

J. Ruseckas, Gediminas Juzeliunas, Patrik Ohberg, M. Fleischhauer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

466 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We show that the adiabatic motion of ultracold, multilevel atoms in spatially varying laser fields can give rise to effective non-Abelian gauge fields if degenerate adiabatic eigenstates of the atom-laser interaction exist. A pair of such degenerate dark states emerges, e.g., if laser fields couple three internal states of an atom to a fourth common one under pairwise two-photon-resonance conditions. For this so-called tripod scheme we derive general conditions for truly non-Abelian gauge potentials and discuss special examples. In particular we show that using orthogonal laser beams with orbital angular momentum an effective magnetic field can be generated that has a monopole component.
Original languageEnglish
Article number010404
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume95
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2005

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