Coupling a Mobile Hole to an Antiferromagnetic Spin Background: Transient Dynamics of a Magnetic Polaron

Understanding the interplay between charge and spin and its effects on transport is a ubiquitous challenge in quantum many-body systems. In the Fermi-Hubbard model, this interplay is thought to give rise to magnetic polarons, whose dynamics may explain emergent properties of quantum materials such a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. X 2021-04, Vol.11 (2), p.021022, Article 021022
Main Authors: Ji, Geoffrey, Xu, Muqing, Kendrick, Lev Haldar, Chiu, Christie S., Brüggenjürgen, Justus C., Greif, Daniel, Bohrdt, Annabelle, Grusdt, Fabian, Demler, Eugene, Lebrat, Martin, Greiner, Markus
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antiferromagnetism
Condensed matter physics
Coupling
Cuprates
Density
Dopants
Electrons
Elementary excitations
Equilibrium
High temperature
Magnetic properties
Magnetism
Polarons
Spin dynamics
Spin exchange
Superconductivity
Two dimensional models
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Summary:Understanding the interplay between charge and spin and its effects on transport is a ubiquitous challenge in quantum many-body systems. In the Fermi-Hubbard model, this interplay is thought to give rise to magnetic polarons, whose dynamics may explain emergent properties of quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductivity. In this work, we use a cold-atom quantum simulator to directly observe the formation dynamics and subsequent spreading of individual magnetic polarons. Measuring the density- and spin-resolved evolution of a single hole in a 2D Hubbard insulator with short-range antiferromagnetic correlations reveals fast initial delocalization and a dressing of the spin background, indicating polaron formation. At long times, we find that dynamics are slowed down by the spin exchange time, and they are compatible with a polaronic model with strong density and spin coupling. Our work enables the study of out-of-equilibrium emergent phenomena in the Fermi-Hubbard model, one dopant at a time.
ISSN:2160-3308
2160-3308
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevX.11.021022