Shaken not stirred: creating exotic angular momentum states by shaking an optical lattice

Abstract

We propose a method to create higher orbital states of ultracold atoms in the\nMott regime of an optical lattice. This is done by periodically modulating the\nposition of the trap minima (known as shaking) and controlling the interference\nterm of the lasers creating the lattice. These methods are combined with\ntechniques of shortcuts to adiabaticity. As an example of this, we show\nspecifically how to create an anti-ferromagnetic type ordering of angular\nmomentum states of atoms. The specific pulse sequences are designed using\nLewis-Riesenfeld invariants and a four-level model for each well. The results\nare compared with numerical simulations of the full Schroedinger equation.\n