Spin-charge separation in a one-dimensional Fermi gas with tunable interactions

Abstract

Ultracold atoms confined to periodic potentials have proven to be a powerful tool for quantum simulation of complex many-body systems. We confine fermions to one dimension to realize the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid model, which describes the highly collective nature of their low-energy excitations. We use Bragg spectroscopy to directly excite either the spin or charge waves for various strengths of repulsive interaction. We observe that the velocity of the spin and charge excitations shift in opposite directions with increasing interaction, a hallmark of spin-charge separation. The excitation spectra are in quantitative agreement with the exact solution of the Yang-Gaudin model and the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory. Furthermore, we identify effects of nonlinear corrections to this theory that arise from band curvature and back-scattering.