Emulating Molecular Orbitals and Electronic Dynamics with Ultracold Atoms

• Published in: Physical review. X Vol. 5; no. 3; p. 031016
• Main Authors: Lühmann, Dirk-Sören, Weitenberg, Christof, Sengstock, Klaus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: College Park American Physical Society 01.08.2015
• Subjects: Benzene; Dynamics; Electronic structure; Electrons; Flight simulators; High resolution; Hydrocarbons; Molecular orbitals; Molecular physics; Molecular structure; Nuclei (nuclear physics); Optical lattices; Optical trapping; Quantum chemistry; Simulation; Ultracold atoms
• ISSN: 2160-3308; 2160-3308
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.5.031016

In recent years, ultracold atoms in optical lattices have proven their great value as quantum simulators for studying strongly correlated phases and complex phenomena in solid-state systems. Here, we reveal their potential as quantum simulators for molecular physics and propose a technique to image the three-dimensional molecular orbitals with high resolution. The outstanding tunability of ultracold atoms in terms of potential and interaction offer fully adjustable model systems for gaining deep insight into the electronic structure of molecules. We study the orbitals of an artificial benzene molecule and discuss the effect of tunable interactions in its conjugated π electron system with special regard to localization and spin order. The dynamical time scales of ultracold atom simulators are on the order of milliseconds, which allows for the time-resolved monitoring of a broad range of dynamical processes. As an example, we compute the hole dynamics in the conjugated π system of the artificial benzene molecule.