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Matter-Wave Diffraction from a Quasicrystalline Optical Lattice.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Viebahn, Konrad 
Sbroscia, Matteo 
Carter, Edward 
Yu, Jr-Chiun 

Abstract

Quasicrystals are long-range ordered and yet nonperiodic. This interplay results in a wealth of intriguing physical phenomena, such as the inheritance of topological properties from higher dimensions, and the presence of nontrivial structure on all scales. Here, we report on the first experimental demonstration of an eightfold rotationally symmetric optical lattice, realizing a two-dimensional quasicrystalline potential for ultracold atoms. Using matter-wave diffraction we observe the self-similarity of this quasicrystalline structure, in close analogy to the very first discovery of quasicrystals using electron diffraction. The diffraction dynamics on short timescales constitutes a continuous-time quantum walk on a homogeneous four-dimensional tight-binding lattice. These measurements pave the way for quantum simulations in fractal structures and higher dimensions.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.dis-nn, cond-mat.str-el, quant-ph

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

122

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P009565/1)
European Research Council (716378)