Spatial patterns in optical lattices submitted to gauge potentials

Abstract

We study the vortex formation in optical lattices submitted to artificial gauge potentials. We compute the superfluid density for Abelian and non-Abelian gauge potentials with a mean-field approach of the Bose-Hubbard model and we determine the rule describing the number of vortices as a function of the effective magnetic flux. This simple rule is represented by a remarkably rich figure that represents the superfluid density as a function of the flux. The phenomena which emanate from this work should be observed experimentally in optical lattices within which atom tunneling is laser-assisted and described by commutative or non-commutative tunneling operators.