Bloch-Landau-Zener dynamics induced by a synthetic field in a photonic quantum walk

Quantum walks are processes that model dynamics in coherent systems. Their experimental implementations proved key to unveil novel phenomena in Floquet topological insulators. Here we realize a photonic quantum walk in the presence of a synthetic gauge field, which mimics the action of an electric f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-11
Main Authors: D'Errico, Alessio, Barboza, Raouf, Tudor, Rebeca, Dauphin, Alexandre, Massignan, Pietro, Marrucci, Lorenzo, Cardano, Filippo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Charged particles
Electric fields
Energy bands
Energy gap
Energy value
Photonics
System dynamics
Topological insulators
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Summary:Quantum walks are processes that model dynamics in coherent systems. Their experimental implementations proved key to unveil novel phenomena in Floquet topological insulators. Here we realize a photonic quantum walk in the presence of a synthetic gauge field, which mimics the action of an electric field on a charged particle. By tuning the energy gaps between the two quasi-energy bands, we investigate intriguing system dynamics characterized by the interplay between Bloch oscillations and Landau-Zener transitions. When both gaps at quasi-energy values 0 and \(\pi\) are vanishingly small, the Floquet dynamics follows a ballistic spreading.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2011.05893