Harmonic trap resonance enhanced synthetic atomic spin-orbit coupling
  Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) plays an essential role in many exotic and interesting phenomena in condensed matter physics. In neutral-atom-based quantum simulations, synthetic SOC constitutes a key enabling element. The strength of SOC realized so far is limited by various reasons or constraints. This work reports tunable SOC synthesized with a gradient magnetic field (GMF) for atoms in a harmonic trap. Nearly ten-fold enhancement is observed when the GMF is modulated near the harmonic-trap resonance in comparison with free-space atoms. A theory is developed that well explains the experimental results. Our work offers a clear physical insight into and analytical understanding of how to tune the strength of atomic SOC synthesized with GMF using harmonic trap resonance. 
Ling-Na Wu, Xin-Yu Luo, Zhi-Fang Xu, Masahito Ueda, Ruquan Wang, L.   You
cond-mat.quant-gas