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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Sep 10.
Published in final edited form as: Phys Today. 2019 Jan;72(1):10.1063/pt.3.4111. doi: 10.1063/pt.3.4111

FIGURE 4. LASER-ASSISTED TUNNELING.

FIGURE 4.

The native tunneling in an optical lattice does not produce the phase differences required to emulate a gauge field. But the phases can be created in a two-step process. (a) When a potential gradient of energy Δ is applied to a lattice, the energy states in adjacent sites go out of resonance with each other, which blocks a localized atomic wavepacket (pink) from tunneling. (b) Additional laser fields illuminating the lattice can provide the required energy to reestablish tunneling (yellow arrow). The applied fields also imprint a local optical phase on the atom’s wavefunction as it moves between lattice sites.