Spin transport in a Mott insulator of ultracold fermions

Abstract

Simulating transport with cold atoms Much can be learned about the nature of a solid from how charge and spin propagate through it. Transport experiments can also be performed in quantum simulators such as cold atom systems, in which individual atoms can be imaged using quantum microscopes. Now, two groups have investigated transport in the so-called Fermi-Hubbard model using a two-dimensional optical lattice filled with one fermionic atom per site (see the Perspective by Brantut). Moving away from half-filling to enable charge transport, Brown et al. found that the resistivity had a linear temperature dependence, not unlike that seen in the strange metal phase of cuprate superconductors. In a complementary study on spin transport, Nichols et al. observed spin diffusion driven by superexchange coupling. Science , this issue p. 379 , p. 383 ; see also p. 344