Engineering the Kondo impurity problem with alkaline-earth-atom arrays

Year: 2025

Authors: Amaricci A., Richaud A., Capone M., Oppong ND., Scazza F.

Autors Affiliation: CNR, Ist Officina Mat, IOM, I-34136 Trieste, Italy; Scuola Int Super Studi Avanzati SISSA, I-34136 Trieste, Italy; Univ Politecn Cataluna, Dept Fis, Barcelona 08034, Spain; CALTECH, Pasadena, CA 91125 USA; Univ Trieste, Dept Phys, I-34127 Trieste, Italy; CNR, INO, Ist Nazl Ott, I-34149 Trieste, Italy.

Abstract: We propose quantum simulation experiments of the Kondo impurity problem using cold alkaline-earth(-like) atoms (AEAs) in a combination of optical lattice and optical tweezer potentials. Within an ab initio model for atomic interactions in the optical potentials, we analyze hallmark signatures of the Kondo effect in a variety of observables accessible in cold-atom quantum simulators. We identify additional terms not part of the textbook Kondo problem, mostly ignored in previous works and giving rise to a direct competition between spin and charge correlations, strongly suppressing Kondo physics. We show that the Kondo effect can be restored by locally adjusting the chemical potential on the impurity site, and we identify realistic parameter regimes and preparation protocols suited to current experiments with AEA arrays. Our work paves the way for quantum simulations of the Kondo problem and offers insights into Kondo physics in unconventional regimes.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW A

Volume: 112 (4)      Pages from: 43301-1  to: 43301-14

More Information: We thank Jeff Maki and Oded Zilberberg for insight-ful discussions, and Pietro Massignan and Matteo Zaccanti for careful reading of this manuscript. A.A. is indebted to Michele Fabrizio for many useful discussions and sugges-tions. A.A. and M.C. acknowledge financial support from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan PNRR MUR Project No. PE0000023-NQSTI. A.R. acknowledges support by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, Grant No. PID2023-147469NB-C21), by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant No. 2021 SGR 01411), and by the ICREA Academia program. M.C. further acknowledges financial support from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan PNRR MUR Project No. CN00000013-ICSC and by MUR via PRIN 2020 (Prot. 2020JLZ52N-002) and PRIN 2022 (Prot. 20228YCYY7) programs. F.S. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (project OrbiDy-naMIQs, Grant Agreement No. 949438), and from the Italian MUR under the FARE 2020 program (project FastOrbit, Prot. R20WNHFNKF) and the PRIN 2022 program (project Co-QuS, Prot. 2022ATM8FY).
KeyWords: Optical Conductivity; Quantum-dot; Resistance; Lattice; Heavy
DOI: 10.1103/m7l3-y2f8