Confinement: a real-time visualization

Abstract

Due to the mechanism of confinement, as known from quantum chromodynamics, it is difficult to observe individual particles carrying fractional quantum number (e.g. quark with fractional electric charge). A condensed matter example of fractionalized particles is spinons in quasi-one-dimensional spin systems, which are domain walls in the background of Neel configurations carrying spin-1/2. Using the time-evolving block decimation algorithm, we visualize the nontrivial domain wall dynamics induced by the confine mechanism in a two-leg spin-1/2 ladder. It can be illustrated by a simple single-particle picture of Bloch oscillation, not only qualitatively but also quantitatively. We propose the experimental realization and the real time detection of the domain wall dynamics in the ultra-cold boson systems of $^{87}$Rb.