QCD calculations with optical lattices?

Abstract

By trapping cold polarizable atoms in periodic potentials created by crossed laser beams, it is now possible to experimentally create "clean" lattice systems. Experimentalists have successfully engineered local and nearest-neighbor interactions that approximately recreate Hubbard-like models on table tops. I discuss the possibility of using this new technology in the context of lattice gauge theory and in particular, relativistic dispersion relations, flavor symmetry, functional derivatives and emerging local gauge symmetry.