title: Realistic time-reversal invariant topological insulators with neutral atoms.
abstract: We lay out an experiment to realize time-reversal invariant topological insulators in alkali atomic gases. We introduce an original method to synthesize a gauge field in the near field of an atom chip, which effectively mimics the effects of spin-orbit coupling and produces quantum spin-Hall states. We also propose a feasible scheme to engineer sharp boundaries where the hallmark edge states are localized. Our multiband system has a large parameter space exhibiting a variety of quantum phase transitions between topological and normal insulating phases. Because of their remarkable versatility, cold-atom systems are ideally suited to realize topological states of matter and drive the development of topological quantum computing.
authors.affiliation: Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Université Libre de Bruxelles, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Goldman
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Satija
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nikolic
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bermudez
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Martin-Delgado
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lewenstein
authors.forename: I B
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Spielman